An­na-Lisa Paul

For the first time in 19 years, D'Orig­i­nal Vale Break­fast Par­ty will not take not take place on Car­ni­val Sun­day night at Amethyst Park, Di­a­mond Vale.Head of the Li­cens­ing Com­mit­tee and Se­nior Mag­is­trate at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates Court, An­nette Mc Ken­zie yes­ter­day dis­missed the ap­pli­ca­tion by pro­mot­er An­tho­ny Young.

How­ev­er, Mc Ken­zie grant­ed the ap­pli­ca­tion by Col­in Miles to host the Sun­ny Side Up Break­fast Par­ty at the St Michael's Parish Hall, Wendy Fitzwilliam Boule­vard, Di­a­mond Vale, on the same date.Young's ap­pli­ca­tion was dis­missed on the ba­sis the venue was un­suit­able for the num­ber of pa­trons ex­pect­ed.

How­ev­er, Miles has to sat­is­fy con­di­tions im­posed by Mc Ken­zie by mid­day on Fri­day or find him­self on the re­ceiv­ing end of her ire.Among the con­di­tions are copies of con­tracts with two se­cu­ri­ty firms to reg­u­late safe and prop­er park­ing, along with close and care­ful mon­i­tor­ing of noise lev­els.Sched­uled to take place be­tween 4 am and 12 mid­day, Miles has been or­dered to en­sure that deci­bel lev­els at his par­ty do not ex­ceed 80 deci­bels be­tween 4 am and 8 am and that it does not ex­ceed 85 deci­bels be­tween 8 am and noon.

The court al­so has rec­om­mend­ed a po­lice strength of 29, along with 17 fire of­fi­cers, sev­en health of­fi­cers and of­fi­cials from the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty.Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,800 par­ty­go­ers were ex­pect­ed to at­tend D'Orig­i­nal Vale Break­fast Par­ty, while Miles will be cater­ing for 1,500 pa­trons.Asked yes­ter­day if he in­tend­ed to cap­i­talise on Young's dis­ap­point­ment, Miles replied: "No."

The T&T Guardian lat­er learned Miles was con­strained in terms of the crowd the parish hall can ac­com­mo­date andthe num­ber of po­lice and fire of­fi­cers was based on the crowd es­ti­mate that was sub­mit­ted to the court.This is the sec­ond year for Miles and his group.Ad­dress­ing the pro­mot­ers, at­tor­neys, re­porters and res­i­dents who were both in sup­port of and against the two events, Mc Ken­zie stunned the court­room as she an­nounced the de­ci­sion with­in ten min­utes of call­ing the mat­ter at 10.40 am.

Re­fer­ring to the break­fast par­ties as "an up-and-com­ing trend," Mc Ken­zie ac­knowl­edged that the ap­pli­ca­tions had been made against the back­drop that Car­ni­val was unique as peo­ple came from all over to ex­pe­ri­ence mas and ca­lyp­so, and al­so pro­vid­ing an eco­nom­ic boost for all, from small ven­dors to the band­lead­ers.

Say­ing Car­ni­val was syn­ony­mous with "bac­cha­nal and gay aban­don­ment," Mc Ken­zie agreed that in­hi­bi­tions dis­ap­peared as free, fun-lov­ing peo­ple came out to cel­e­brate, while oth­ers chose not to par­tic­i­pate in the rev­el­ry and in­stead, sought al­ter­na­tives by at­tend­ing church and head­ing to the beach­es.

Adding that the court had been charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to con­sid­er all views as well as pre­serv­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of all cit­i­zens, Mc Ken­zie stressed: "All ap­pli­ca­tions are tak­en on their own mer­it."Fol­low­ing a site vis­it to both lo­ca­tions on Jan­u­ary 22, Mc Ken­zie said the Li­cens­ing Com­mit­tee had found Amethyst Park to be open and un­fenced, with "un­kempt" trees, shrubs and grass eight inch­es high.

Ad­dress­ing the ob­jec­tions raised by the Di­a­mond Vale Res­i­dents Com­mit­tee, who pre­sent­ed a pe­ti­tion signed by over 265 peo­ple, Mc Ken­zie said there was no di­rect ev­i­dence of tres­pass and no po­lice re­ports of any­one us­ing ob­scene lan­guage, ex­ces­sive noise or in­de­cent be­hav­iour.

Re­fer­ring to the "un­wa­ver­ing and un­com­pro­mis­ing stance of the ob­jec­tors" who were ob­ject­ing to all par­ties and so­cial events be­ing held in the area, Mc Ken­zie de­scribed it as "self­ish and high-hand­ed," and called for tol­er­ance and bal­ance.How­ev­er, she ad­mit­ted "small prop­er­ty own­ers will suf­fer the brunt of these fetes."

Turn­ing to ev­i­dence that the St Michael's An­gli­can Church and the Diego Mar­tin Sec­ondary School had pre­vi­ous­ly ben­e­fit­ed from Miles' event, Mc Ken­zie said al­though the par­ties would fos­ter ca­ma­raderie and en­hance com­mu­ni­ty re­la­tions, it was the self­ish de­sires of a few seek­ing to make a prof­it at the ex­pense of the el­der­ly, dif­fer­ent­ly-abled and oth­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Im­me­di­ate­ly in­di­cat­ing his in­ten­tion to ap­peal the de­ci­sion, at­tor­ney Kei­th Scot­land, who rep­re­sent­ed both Miles and Young, asked for a typed copy of Mc Ken­zie's re­fusal in or­der to file the rel­e­vant doc­u­ments by the close of busi­ness yes­ter­day.Adding to Scot­land's frus­tra­tion, Mc Ken­zie said she would be un­able to guar­an­tee when her writ­ten rul­ing would be typed up, as she in­struct­ed the at­tor­ney to wait and then "pull out what you want."

Al­though Young re­fused to speak with re­porters, res­i­dents said they were sat­is­fied with the mag­is­trate's de­ci­sion.