Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh

Three years ago, when I saw my old teacher at­tend a meet­ing at the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion Coun­cil, it brought a wave of nos­tal­gia for my days at the Curepe Pres­by­ter­ian School. “Teach,” as we fond­ly called him, epit­o­mised the no­ble call­ing of an ed­u­ca­tor—well-man­nered, cor­rec­tive with love, and pas­sion­ate about his craft. A great in­tel­lect, he au­thored a pop­u­lar So­cial Stud­ies book for the then Com­mon En­trance ex­am. In his prime, he fought to ed­u­cate the next gen­er­a­tion; in his twi­light years, he is now fight­ing sim­ply for a good night’s sleep.

For years, he and oth­er el­der­ly res­i­dents of Knowles Street in Curepe plead­ed at com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings for help with the noise, chaot­ic park­ing, and crim­i­nal be­hav­iour plagu­ing their neigh­bour­hood.

As re­cent­ly as No­vem­ber 13th, com­plaints were raised again, this time to new­ly as­signed Sgt Paul Joseph. At last, on Sun­day night, mean­ing­ful ac­tion was seen. A po­lice ex­er­cise led to 28 il­le­gal Venezue­lans be­ing de­tained and a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion re­cov­ered. Of­fi­cers from the St Joseph sta­tion, led by the in­domitable ACP Rishi Singh and ASP Sunil Bharath, ar­rest­ed 22 males and six fe­males and re­cov­ered 100 rounds of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion.

This sit­u­a­tion had been on­go­ing for years. On Ju­ly 24th, 2024, I wrote about dis­traught Knowles Street res­i­dents de­scrib­ing non­stop noise from large groups of Venezue­lans who gath­ered week­ly for games and par­ties.

“Usu­al­ly, 150 to 200 peo­ple ar­rive at 9 am on Sun­day to play games that end at 9.30 pm. Af­ter­ward, a par­ty be­gins at a bar and con­tin­ues un­til 5 am Mon­day. That’s 20 hours of non­stop noise,” one res­i­dent said.

Oth­ers spoke of crowds scream­ing, fight­ing, break­ing bot­tles, uri­nat­ing on walls, and lit­ter­ing the streets. They com­plained about blocked gate­ways, cook­ing on pave­ments, and chil­dren roam­ing in and out of the bar or be­ing left alone in ve­hi­cles. With ris­ing crime, many felt un­safe with such large groups en­ter­ing their neigh­bour­hood. El­der­ly per­sons, car­diac pa­tients, and stu­dents were all be­ing af­fect­ed, while ap­peals to the EMA, the po­lice, the TPRC and the bar li­cens­ing au­thor­i­ty brought lit­tle re­lief.

Res­i­dents are now prais­ing Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der for this long-await­ed in­ter­ven­tion and hope it will be main­tained through con­tin­ued ex­er­cis­es by the St Joseph po­lice.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had pre­vi­ous­ly warned of the “pro­lif­er­a­tion of noise pol­lu­tion em­a­nat­ing from homes, fetes, bars and clubs, in­tol­er­a­ble to the per­sons liv­ing near­by.” She promised to amend the noise pol­lu­tion laws in these noisy res­i­den­tial neigh­bour­hoods and busi­ness­es and to re­view the sys­tem of grant­i­ng bar and par­ty li­cences.

On April 6th, 2023, I chaired the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Lo­cal Au­thor­i­ties, Ser­vice Com­mis­sions and Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties, which ex­am­ined the op­er­a­tions of the EMA with spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to noise pol­lu­tion. I then sug­gest­ed im­ple­ment­ing a tick­et­ing sys­tem for noise of­fences with hefty fines. This on-the-spot tick­et­ing would pro­vide im­me­di­ate re­lief to res­i­dents, re­duce con­ges­tion in the courts, in­crease the coun­try’s rev­enue, and even­tu­al­ly help fos­ter a cul­tur­al shift to­ward re­spect­ing the rights of oth­ers.

New York City of­fers an in­ter­est­ing mod­el. There, any­one—not just law en­force­ment—can is­sue a ci­ta­tion for loud noise from a busi­ness and be com­pen­sat­ed through a share of the fines col­lect­ed.

If such a sys­tem is im­ple­ment­ed here, it could em­pow­er cit­i­zens, pro­vide some with ad­di­tion­al in­come, and ease the work­load of the po­lice and the EMA. We can even train “noise war­dens” to en­force reg­u­la­tions, gath­er­ing video and au­dio ev­i­dence that can with­stand le­gal chal­lenges. NYC’s reg­u­la­tions are spe­cif­ic. Be­tween 10 pm and 7 am, mu­sic from bars and restau­rants may not ex­ceed 42 deci­bels in­side near­by res­i­dences and must not ex­ceed 7 deci­bels above am­bi­ent sound lev­els on the street. New York’s noise or­di­nance even ad­dress­es nui­sance dog bark­ing for 10 min­utes straight be­tween 7 am and 10 pm, or for five min­utes straight be­tween 10 pm and 7 am. The city has al­so in­tro­duced noise-de­tect­ing cam­eras that au­to­mat­i­cal­ly tick­et ex­ces­sive­ly loud ve­hi­cles.

On Mon­day, sev­er­al stake­hold­ers and I were in­vit­ed by Za­heer Ali, di­rec­tor of the Pol­i­cy and Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port Of­fice (PAC­SO) in the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, to as­sist in their de­vel­op­ment of a na­tion­al noise pol­lu­tion pol­i­cy. While wait­ing for such a pol­i­cy, ac­tions like the Knowles Street ex­er­cise bring some hope that we have a Gov­ern­ment lis­ten­ing and will­ing to act for its dis­traught cit­i­zens.

Res­i­dents like my old teacher have wait­ed years for peace. Thank­ful­ly, with firm pol­i­cy, con­sis­tent en­force­ment, and po­lit­i­cal will, com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try may fi­nal­ly re­claim the qui­et nights they de­serve.