KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Sev­er­al Car­ni­val fete pro­mot­ers are al­ready search­ing for new venues to host their Car­ni­val 2026 events af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter di­rect­ed that all fetes be stopped from tak­ing place at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA).

Af­ter years of host­ing some of the coun­try’s biggest fetes, the BLCA has been si­lenced by or­der of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. The de­ci­sion, she said, is part of her Gov­ern­ment’s promise to tack­le noise pol­lu­tion and re­store peace to near­by com­mu­ni­ties.

The an­nounce­ment has thrown sev­er­al ma­jor pro­mot­ers in­to un­cer­tain­ty. Af­ter months of plan­ning and in­vest­ment, they are now scram­bling to find al­ter­na­tive venues for the sea­son ahead.

“I in­struct­ed that all fetes at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my be stopped as the noise has be­come un­bear­able for res­i­dents. For far too long, the is­sue of noise pol­lu­tion and its neg­a­tive im­pact on com­mu­ni­ties has been ig­nored,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day in a post on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter).

She de­scribed noise pol­lu­tion as a nui­sance.

She added that be­fore the end of this year, the Gov­ern­ment will pass fire­works leg­is­la­tion in Par­lia­ment.

“In ad­di­tion, en­hanced noise pol­lu­tion laws will be in­tro­duced to reg­u­late des­ig­nat­ed qui­et hours, as well as new re­stric­tions on fetes, mu­sic trucks, res­i­den­tial par­ties, and bars.”

As part of her mes­sage, the Prime Min­is­ter post­ed a clip of her­self on the elec­tion cam­paign, promis­ing that when the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress wins, peo­ple’s men­tal health would al­so win, as she as­sured of stronger laws to stop noise pol­lu­tion.

“The UNC will amend the noise pol­lu­tion laws to pro­tect your men­tal health in these noisy res­i­den­tial neigh­bour­hoods and busi­ness­es. The sys­tem of grant­i­ng bar li­cences and par­ty li­cences will be changed by the UNC,” she said in the clip.

In a re­cent re­port, Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Ude­cott) chair­man Shankar Bidaisee claimed fetes have caused sig­nif­i­cant wear and tear, high main­te­nance costs, and se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns. The rev­enue from such events, he not­ed, is neg­li­gi­ble com­pared to the dam­age and up­keep ex­pens­es.

Re­lief and un­rest

among res­i­dents

As Nov­ell Wolfe pre­pared to bury his moth­er, Rose­marie Williams-Wolfe, yes­ter­day, he said she would have been re­lieved by the ban. Williams-Wolfe, who died last Thurs­day, lived along Ria Ram­nar­ine Cir­cu­lar, Tarou­ba Heights, over­look­ing the sta­di­um. He said the noise dis­turbed many res­i­dents, though most pre­ferred not to com­plain pub­licly.

“She used to put it in a joke be­cause she was al­ways try­ing to make me not wor­ry. When I was here, she used to make jokes like, ‘why those peo­ple did not car­ry their fete’ and some oth­er venue she would call. She was old school, so some­times she would call places I didn’t know,” Wolfe said.

On Tarou­ba Es­tate Road, Tar­ran Kissoon­dath said the events were so loud they kept him awake for hours. A re­cov­er­ing heart pa­tient, he said he feels “re­al­ly good” and ex­pects bet­ter rest dur­ing Car­ni­val 2026.

“The roof vi­brates and the gal­vanise in­side, the win­dows, every­thing is in a mess,” Kissoon­dath said.

In Lexus Vil­las, Mara­bel­la, a com­mu­ni­ty poll showed that many res­i­dents were un­both­ered by the fetes, some even en­joy­ing the mu­sic. Over in Har­mo­ny Hall, Gas­par­il­lo, and Re­form Vil­lage, res­i­dents said they rarely heard any­thing. A few ad­mit­ted they usu­al­ly at­tend­ed the fetes them­selves.

Pro­mot­ers weigh loss­es

The Pres­tige Past Pupils Foun­da­tion (PPPF) is al­ready seek­ing a new lo­ca­tion for its all-in­clu­sive fete, which sup­ports Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do. The Air Com­mit­tee is al­so scout­ing al­ter­na­tive venues for Stink + Dut­ty and Out in South, two of south Trinidad’s largest Car­ni­val events.

Air Com­mit­tee co-di­rec­tor Shane Baird told Guardian Me­dia that Ude­cott ini­tial­ly ap­proved the use of the sta­di­um but lat­er with­drew per­mis­sion. He said the events will go on, with the team ex­plor­ing venues across the coun­try.

Re­spond­ing to Bidaisee’s claims, Baird said fetes do not dam­age the sta­di­um, as they are held in the car parks, and that clean-up de­posits are part of the rental cost. He ac­knowl­edged, how­ev­er, that noise lev­els are a re­cur­ring is­sue.

“With re­gards to the noise, I know it is a prob­lem. We can­not re­al­ly stop that be­cause you have one or two res­i­dents who may not agree with that par­tic­u­lar stance. So it goes when it comes to larg­er-scale events,” Baird said.

He main­tained that BLCA re­mains one of the best venues in the coun­try for large events.

“It is a full pack­age when it comes to space and park­ing—park­ing be­ing num­ber one, a rea­son why you will want to use it. To me, it is just one of the best event spaces, not just in South, but prob­a­bly na­tion­wide.”

PPPF chair­man Ains­ley Welch said plan­ning for Pres­tige 2026 be­gan months ago, and two al­ter­na­tive venues have been iden­ti­fied for the Jan­u­ary 25 event. As a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, 85 per cent of Pres­tige’s prof­its go to­ward school main­te­nance, five per cent to char­i­ty, and the re­main­der to op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es.

Re­spond­ing to the noise is­sue, Welch said, as a for­mer Gopaul Lands res­i­dent, he un­der­stands the com­plaints. How­ev­er, he not­ed that the stage is po­si­tioned to min­imise sound im­pact.

“From a Pres­tige Past Pupils Foun­da­tion per­spec­tive, we nor­mal­ly leave the car park space in the con­di­tion that we re­ceive it,” Welch said.

‘Don’t call cul­ture noise’

For­mer Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell said he hopes the Prime Min­is­ter im­ple­ments cul­tur­al poli­cies with­out an age bias, favour­ing one group.

He said T&T’s cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion should not be dis­missed as “noise” or its cre­ative econ­o­my treat­ed as a nui­sance.

“Noise pol­lu­tion is a le­git­i­mate con­cern, but ban­ning cul­tur­al events and event spaces is not the so­lu­tion. The con­cept of nui­sance al­ways in­volves a bal­anc­ing act— pro­tect­ing res­i­dents’ peace while al­low­ing the cul­tur­al econ­o­my to thrive,” Mitchell said.

He added that fetes, con­certs, and com­mu­ni­ty events at venues like the BLCA em­ploy hun­dreds of peo­ple—from ven­dors and sound en­gi­neers to artistes and stage crews.