Derek Achong

A group of res­i­dents of Champs El­y­sees, Mar­aval, have lost their bid to stop the Prime all-in­clu­sive fete from be­ing held at the Coun­try Club on Sun­day evening.The group, rep­re­sent­ed through res­i­dents Mar­lene Guy and Mar­garet Fras­er, was forced to drop their ob­jec­tion on the grounds of ex­ces­sive noise and in­dis­crim­i­nate park­ing yes­ter­day af­ter­noon af­ter the Court of Ap­peal ruled they did not have le­gal au­thor­i­ty to ob­ject.

With­in min­utes of the Ap­peal Court's rul­ing, at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the fete pro­mot­er, Rus­sell DeGa­zon, rushed across to a meet­ing of the Li­cens­ing Com­mit­tee for St George West at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates Court, where the li­cence was even­tu­al­ly grant­ed.In their oral de­ci­sion, judges Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon and Prakash Moo­sai said in cas­es of oc­ca­sion­al liquor li­cences (one-off events), un­der the Liquor Li­cences Act, on­ly the se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer of the di­vi­sion where the event was be­ing held could raise an ob­jec­tion.

"If it was the in­ten­tion of the leg­is­la­ture to give oth­er peo­ple the pow­er to ob­ject, they would have stat­ed so," Yorke-Soo Hon said.She was care­ful to note that the po­lice in this case through­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed the group's com­plaints and ruled them out as base­less. Yorke-Soo Hon al­so said the Fire Ser­vice, En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) and health in­spec­tors al­so found no rea­son to ob­ject to the fete.

While the Ap­peal Court's de­ci­sion au­to­mat­i­cal­ly de­feat­ed the group's ob­jec­tion, Yorke-Soo Hon still ad­vised the two op­pos­ing par­ties to come to a com­pro­mise."I still hope there is still room for some sort of con­sen­sus," Yorke-Soo Hon said.Lawyers for the pro­mot­er filed the ap­peal on Mon­day, af­ter Se­nior Mag­is­trate An­nette McKen­zie, chair­man of the Li­cens­ing Com­mit­tee, ruled that the res­i­dents had the au­thor­i­ty to ob­ject.

Yes­ter­day's de­ci­sion is like­ly to af­fect an­oth­er fete, Sun­ny Side Up break­fast par­ty, which is sched­uled for Car­ni­val Sun­day (March 2) at Wendy Fitzwilliam Boule­vard, Di­a­mond Vale, Diego Mar­tin. A res­i­dent of that com­mu­ni­ty raised an ob­jec­tion when that fete's pro­mot­ers ap­plied for an oc­ca­sion­al liquor and dance­hall li­cences in De­cem­ber.

At­tor­ney Kei­th Scot­land, who is rep­re­sent­ing both pro­mot­ers, had al­so chal­lenged the res­i­dents' abil­i­ty to ob­ject dur­ing a hear­ing of the Li­cens­ing Com­mit­tee on Mon­day. Scot­land said he would wait on the Court of Ap­peal's de­ci­sion be­fore pro­ceed­ing with the li­cence ap­pli­ca­tion for the break­fast par­ty.That ap­pli­ca­tion is ex­pect­ed to be dealt with when the com­mit­tee meets again next Thurs­day.