With the recent granting of several liquor licences to restaurant and bar owners, the hundreds of sleep-deprived residents of Port-of-Spain will have to tolerate the noise and loud music emanating from these premises for yet another year. In the absence of any objectors in court when these applications were being considered by the Licensing Committee, Magistrate Lucinda Cardenas-Ragoonanan, the chairman of the committee, had no alternative but to grant the licences to the respective applicants.
We sleep-deprived residents now have an opportunity to form ourselves into a protest group and to call a community meeting/ meetings and to prepare an appropriate petition for submission to Prakash Ramadar, the Minister for Legal Affairs, for his consideration, with copies of the petition being sent to the Prime Minister, the Attorney General, the mayor of Port-of-Spain, the chairman and the CEO of the Environmental Management Authority (EMA), the Commissioner of Police, the Comptroller of Customs, and to all other government agencies which may be concerned with the abatement of noise pollution and with the control and supervision of bars and restaurants.
In "civilised" countries where citizens respect the rights of others, there are well established laws to regulate noise levels, especially in residential areas. These laws are vigorously enforced. In Canada, the US, the UK and in most other European countries there are laws to regulate the opening and closing hours for bars, pubs, restaurants and dance halls. My compromise will be for all music, even when played at a tolerable level, in all bars, restaurants and other such premises to cease at 11 pm. Consideration may be given to extending this time to 1 am for sound-proof premises similar to the Mas Camp Pub.
The premises will be permitted to remain open with the last drink being served by 1.30 am and all patrons vacating the premises by 2 am. On application, a special permit for an extension of these closing hours during festival periods, example Christmas, Carnival, Easter and Independence, may be granted with conditions to be monitored by the police. The EMA will continue to be responsible for monitoring noise levels and to ensure that no music is played after 11 pm, except for sound-proof premises where the time will be 1 am.The law must give the authority to the police and to officials of the EMA to take immediate action when the terms and conditions of a liquor licence or special permit are contravened.
They must have the authority to stop the music and, if the instruction is not followed, to lay charges against the offender and to seize the amplifier. Repeat offenders may have their licence revoked by the Licensing Committee. As at present, a special licence (now called a variation) may be applied for and be granted by the EMA to organisers of fetes, concerts and similar activities, with stated conditions relative to noise levels and time of closure. There must be stated penalties for contravening the terms and conditions of such special licences and for disobeying the instructions of and/or obstructing an official of the EMA or the police.
The existing laws do not contain stated penalties for contravening these terms and condi- tions.
While I commend Mayor Lee Sing for bringing this long outstanding matter to the forefront, I believe that he has chosen the wrong time of the year to raise the matter. Let us all "sleep-deprived" residents get together after the Carnival season to make a concerted effort to bring about amendments to the existing "toothless" laws and to thus ensure that our lives will not continue to be shortened through regular deprivation of sleep.
Should Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley and the PNM consider it to be in their party's best interest to support the restaurant and bar owners and their loud and disturbing music and bring pressure on Lee Sing to "back-off," then they will not only be giving the Government an opportunity to offer relief to the hundreds of sleep-deprived residents in many parts of our country but also to ensure the loss to the PNM of thousands of votes in any future election. Finally, I am confident that someone will come forward should Mayor Lee Sing not be there to lead the charge for amendments to be made to the existing "toothless" laws.
Neil Alexander
Via e-mail