Jesse Ramdeo

For­mer Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell has cau­tioned against what he de­scribed as the “re­duc­tion” of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion to mere “noise,” fol­low­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment of new mea­sures to curb noise pol­lu­tion, in­clud­ing a ban on all fetes at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my.

In a post on X, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment will in­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion to es­tab­lish des­ig­nat­ed qui­et hours and im­pose re­stric­tions on fetes, mu­sic trucks, res­i­den­tial par­ties, and bars. The move, she said, is aimed at tack­ling the grow­ing prob­lem of noise pol­lu­tion and its neg­a­tive im­pact on near­by com­mu­ni­ties.

But speak­ing to CNC3 News, Mitchell ar­gued that such blan­ket bans would do more harm than good.

“Our cul­tur­al econ­o­my and those cre­atives who work tire­less­ly to cre­ate and pro­duce cul­tur­al prod­ucts must nev­er be re­duced and be de­scribed as a nui­sance,” he said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that noise pol­lu­tion is a le­git­i­mate con­cern, Mitchell said ban­ning cul­tur­al events and event spaces is “not the so­lu­tion.”

“The con­cept of nui­sance al­ways in­volves a bal­anc­ing act to re­duce its neg­a­tive ef­fects, bal­anc­ing the needs of res­i­dents’ qui­et peace and en­joy­ment and the needs of the cul­tur­al econ­o­my to thrive,” he ex­plained.

He added that the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) and the Noise Pol­lu­tion Rules al­ready pro­vide process­es to achieve that bal­ance.

Mitchell said the EMA is the law­ful agency re­spon­si­ble for re­ceiv­ing and ap­prov­ing noise vari­a­tion ap­pli­ca­tions, en­sur­ing that event pro­mot­ers, bar own­ers, and the po­lice com­ply with the law.

“En­force­ment might be the is­sue,” he not­ed.

The for­mer min­is­ter said fetes, con­certs, and com­mu­ni­ty events, par­tic­u­lar­ly at ma­jor venues such as the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my, sus­tain hun­dreds of jobs and feed in­to a wider ecosys­tem that sup­ports the na­tion­al econ­o­my through cre­ativ­i­ty and tourism.

“What is need­ed is polic­ing of the reg­u­la­tions on deci­bel lim­its, event hours, and sound man­age­ment by the EMA, the man­age­ment at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um, and pro­mot­ers, not blan­ket bans,” Mitchell said.

He urged the Gov­ern­ment to strike a bal­ance be­tween pro­tect­ing res­i­dents’ peace and sup­port­ing the same cul­tur­al econ­o­my that, he point­ed out, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter praised in his re­cent bud­get speech.

“We can pro­tect res­i­dents’ peace with­out sti­fling the same cul­tur­al econ­o­my that de­fines Trinidad and To­ba­go and pow­ers so much of our eco­nom­ic and cre­ative life,” he said.