Yvonne Webb

Pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go Kei­th Di­az is hop­ping mad that the steel­pan, the na­tion­al in­stru­ment of T&T, is still clas­si­fied as a noisy in­stru­ment on our law books.

He is call­ing for the re­moval of this clas­si­fi­ca­tion. "We have to take this off," Di­az said. He was com­ment­ing on last week's High Court de­ci­sion, which placed re­stric­tions on the hours NL­CB Fon­claire could now prac­tise. The judg­ment fol­lowed com­plaints by of one of its neigh­bours, Rook­man Ma­hadeo, about the noise em­a­nat­ing from its Fon­rose and Claire Street pa­n­yard, San Fer­nan­do. In De­cem­ber 2008, Ma­hadeo, who lives ad­ja­cent to the pa­n­yard, brought ac­tion against Mil­ton Wire Austin, Fon­claire's leader, Ken­neth Jack­son and Joseph Reid, for its ex­tend­ed hours of play and un­ruly be­hav­iour of its play­ers.

Ma­hadeo and the de­fen­dants came to an arrange­ment, which re­sult­ed in High Court Judge An­dre des Vi­gnes, last week grant­i­ng an or­der re­strict­ing Fon­claire's op­er­at­ing hours to no lat­er than 11 pm. There was al­so con­sen­sus that that pe­ri­od be ex­tend­ed by one hour, to mid­night, for a pe­ri­od of two weeks, lead­ing up to the stag­ing of na­tion­al Panora­ma. "This is a ret­ro­grade step...We are go­ing back­wards in­stead of go­ing for­ward," Di­az said in an in­ter­view. Speak­ing at the St Mar­garet's Boy's Steel Or­ches­tra fourth Pan Ex­trav­a­gan­za held at TCL Skif­fle Bunch, San Fer­nan­do, over the week­end, Di­az said: "There must be re­spect for the in­stru­ment." Di­az said he did not want to com­ment too much on the judg­ment.

"Panora­ma time is a se­ri­ous time...You could tell me we could play from 4 pm dur­ing the day to 1 o'clock in the morn­ing for the lat­est, but don't come and tell me we have to fin­ish prac­tis­ing around 11 o'clock," he said. Look­ing around at the pa­n­yard and the many young pan­nist who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Ex­trav­a­gan­za, Di­az said the dis­re­spect for the in­stru­ment takes him back to his youth­ful days, when the pan was taboo. "Look how many young peo­ple are here to­day, these are young peo­ple who are heav­i­ly in­volved in mu­sic, not in crime," Di­az said.