An­na-Lisa Paul

Res­i­dents who ob­ject­ed to the host­ing of two pop­u­lar largest break­fast par­ties on Car­ni­val Sun­day night in Di­a­mond Vale have al­leged that they have been threat­ened and were now fear­ful about be­ing sin­gled out.The rev­e­la­tion was made as they hur­ried out of a three-and-a-half-hour-long spe­cial sit­ting of the Li­cens­ing Com­mit­tee head­ed by Se­nior Mag­is­trate An­nette Mc Ken­zie in the Port-of-Spain Fourth Court on Tues­day.

Fear­ful of their pic­tures be­ing tak­en and names be­ing used, the res­i­dents said they had not an­tic­i­pat­ed how the sit­u­a­tion would de­vel­op, as they on­ly stand­ing up for their rights.Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Sun­ny Side Up Break­fast Par­ty and D'Orig­i­nal Vale Break­fast Par­ty were left dis­ap­point­ed af­ter the mag­is­trate failed to grant the oc­ca­sion­al li­cences which are nec­es­sary for them to pro­ceed.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from each camp will re­turn to court on Feb­ru­ary 4, led by their at­tor­neys Kei­th Scot­land and Asha Watkins.Grant­i­ng of the li­cences was stayed af­ter the Di­a­mond Vale Res­i­dents Com­mit­tee pre­sent­ed a pe­ti­tion signed by over 265 res­i­dents ob­ject­ing to the two events.

The Sun­ny Side Up Break­fast Par­ty is set to take place at the St Michael's Parish Hall, Wendy Fitzwl­liam Boule­vard, Di­a­mond Vale on Feb­ru­ary 10. D'Orig­i­nal Vale Break­fast Par­ty is sched­uled for Amethyst Park, Di­a­mond Vale, on the same day.

In the pe­ti­tion, res­i­dents claimed they were de­nied their right to en­joy life and prop­er­ty, as the par­ties of­ten drew crowds in ex­cess of 4,000 peo­ple, which in turn led to prob­lems such as a traf­fic grid­lock, peo­ple uri­nat­ing on walls, fight­ing, ex­ces­sive­ly loud mu­sic, in­dis­crim­i­nate park­ing, peo­ple en­gag­ing in sex­u­al acts, prop­er­ty be­ing de­stroyed and the use of ob­scene lan­guage.

Call­ing on two res­i­dents who were in sup­port of the par­ties be­ing held, Scot­land pre­sent­ed Joan Wood and Roger Vier­ra, who both tes­ti­fied that D'Orig­i­nal Vale Break­fast Par­ty pre­sent­ed a cer­tain cul­ture and paint­ed a pic­ture of ca­ma­raderie and to­geth­er­ness in­volv­ing lo­cals and for­eign­ers.

Ad­mit­ting that res­i­dents liv­ing along Amethyst Dri­ve would ex­pe­ri­ence "some de­gree of dis­com­fort," Scot­land ap­pealed to all present to un­der­stand that Car­ni­val was a fes­tiv­i­ty that came once a year and should not be dis­al­lowed on the ba­sis of one ob­jec­tion.Ad­dress­ing the con­cerns raised by the res­i­dents, Scot­land ar­gued that at no time dur­ing the hear­ings, had proof been brought be­fore the court to cor­rob­o­rate the "scan­dalous and un­truth­ful al­le­ga­tions."

Min­utes af­ter the pros­e­cu­tion closed its case, the mag­is­trate an­nounced that she was not pre­pared to present her ev­i­dence yes­ter­day, and it was ad­journed to next Mon­day.