Yvonne?Ba­boolal

De­fy­ing a crack­down on il­le­gal fire­works, cit­i­zens across T&T played a New Year's Eve cat and mouse game with the po­lice, re­leas­ing scratch bombs and noise­mak­ers to ring in 2017.

Some cit­i­zens said it ap­peared the de­vices were nois­i­er and the on­ly dif­fer­ence from pre­vi­ous years was that in­stead of a pro­longed night the pe­ri­od was short­er.

Of­fi­cials of the An­i­mal 360 Foun­da­tion said they got re­ports of five dead dogs on the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way be­tween Val­sayn and Trinci­ty alone, adding they be­lieved this un­usu­al­ly large num­ber was re­lat­ed to fire­works use.

"Tu­na­puna Pasea, very loud nois­es in the neigh­bour­hood," a res­i­dent post­ed on An­i­mal 360's Face­book page.

"In Barataria, some dif­fi­cult ar­eas still dif­fi­cult. The chil­dren in the area are us­ing scratch bombs while the mid­night fire­crack­ers are go­ing off in­ces­sant­ly from all di­rec­tions. No po­lice pa­trolling to catch them in the act," an­oth­er cit­i­zen post­ed.

A Mal­oney res­i­dent told the T&T Guardian: "There was no de­crease in fire­works up here this year. This year was quite an­noy­ing, even worse.

"There was an up­grade in the po­ten­cy of fire­works. Some burst so loud­ly the walls lit­er­al­ly vi­brat­ed like it was a mi­ni bomb blast."

An of­fi­cer at the West End Sta­tion, asked if there was a de­crease in the use of fire­works in that area, replied: "Ab­solute­ly not. In fact, there seems to have been a mod­i­fi­ca­tion on the fire­works that bang out ex­treme­ly loud­ly. They got loud­er."

He said of­fi­cers from the sta­tion did pa­trols and road blocks and met peo­ple who com­plained about the noise but no of­fi­cial re­ports were made and there were no ar­rests.

In the Sou Sou Land area of Carl­son Field, an el­der­ly cou­ple com­plained that the fire­works noise was "worse this year".

The 68-year old wife said up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon her ears still felt clogged from the noise.

"My head is hurt­ing. I didn't sleep. They were go­ing com­pe­ti­tion from house to house. They must have spent about $1/4 mil­lion in fire­works in this small vil­lage alone. I don't know where peo­ple get­ting all this mon­ey to burn in this re­ces­sion,"she said.

Of­fi­cers at the Long­denville po­lice sta­tion said they got sev­er­al noise re­ports but no one was de­tained in that area ei­ther.

"They see the po­lice ve­hi­cle miles away with its big, blue flash­ing lights," said an of­fi­cer who not­ed, though, that there seemed to have been a de­crease in the amount of fire­works used.

"It could have been fear of be­ing charged. Peo­ple would have been scep­ti­cal to buy them," he said,

Res­i­dents from oth­er ar­eas said there an im­prove­ment in the noise in­ten­si­ty and amount of fire­works be­ing re­leased, while po­lice of­fi­cers claimed it was qui­et in some ar­eas. Of­fi­cers at the St Barb's Po­lice Post in Laven­tille said no one com­plained about noise­and no ar­rests were made. A Va­len­cia po­lice of­fi­cer said: "It was qui­et here. No de­tainees." Ari­ma po­lice said they had "some com­plaints" but no one was de­tained.

Roger Mar­shall, founder of the An­i­mal 360 Foun­da­tion, said: "Last night (New Year's Eve) was very bad but it was not an en­tire night of pro­longed ex­plo­sions. It was a short­er pe­ri­od."

He said An­i­mal 360 got re­ports of the po­lice stop­ping and warn­ing peo­ple and dri­ving through ar­eas. He said his NGO will be hand de­liv­er­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for strength­en­ing fire­works leg­is­la­tion to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris al Rawi ear­ly to­mor­row morn­ing.