Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has not charged a sin­gle per­son un­der the new fire­works law, say­ing the leg­is­la­tion is com­plex and dif­fi­cult to en­force.

Mean­while, fol­low­ing re­ports that the law failed to re­duce noise lev­els dur­ing the fes­tive sea­son, the Prime Min­is­ter has warned that an out­right ban on fire­works could be im­posed in the com­ing months if the be­hav­iour con­tin­ues in­to the new year.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed by the TTPS Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment that, as of yes­ter­day morn­ing, no one had been charged un­der the new leg­is­la­tion since it took ef­fect on De­cem­ber 19.

Speak­ing at the TTPS’ third an­nu­al Chil­dren’s Christ­mas Treat at the St Au­gus­tine South Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre yes­ter­day, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) for Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, ex­plained that it’s a hard law to man­age.

“So far, based on re­ports com­ing in, we warned peo­ple about the use of fire­works. This law, it’s kind of com­plex in man­ag­ing it be­cause you have peo­ple go­ing in­to bushy ar­eas and send­ing off fire­works, so we have of­fi­cers that were on the ground.”

In a me­dia re­lease sent yes­ter­day evening, DCP Mar­tin ex­plained that of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to all re­ports; how­ev­er, no in­di­vid­u­als were ob­served at the lo­ca­tions up­on the po­lice’s ar­rival. She added that a high pres­ence of po­lice pa­trols would have con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to mit­i­gat­ing po­ten­tial risks such as fire haz­ards and in­jury.

How­ev­er, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tains that there is noth­ing wrong with the law and says she is not blam­ing the po­lice for the ab­sence of charges. In­stead, she ar­gues that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty lies with sec­tions of the pub­lic, who she says failed so­ci­ety on Old Year’s Night and in­to the New Year.

She said even from her home, she could hear fire­works out­side of the al­lowed win­dow.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “There are some peo­ple in this coun­try who sim­ply can­not fol­low the law and have no con­cern for the in­con­ve­nience and ha­rass­ment they im­pose on de­cent law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. The coun­try will re­main a law­less dump un­less strong ac­tions are tak­en against these ig­no­rant peo­ple who have no re­gard for their fel­low cit­i­zens.”

She added, “The is­sue is not about law en­force­ment, it’s about a lack of ci­vil­i­ty and re­spect by some cit­i­zens. The po­lice shouldn’t have to be chas­ing cit­i­zens to charge or ar­rest them to get them to fol­low mi­nor laws. What type of ex­am­ple are adults who can’t fol­low mi­nor rules and laws set­ting for their chil­dren? The law­less, en­ti­tled peo­ple sim­ply don’t care about who they kill on the roads, who they tor­ment in their homes or who they bul­ly, abuse and in­con­ve­nience day af­ter day.”

PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “The law did not fail, the po­lice did not fail, the good law-abid­ing cit­i­zens did not fail, but a mi­nor­i­ty of law­less cit­i­zens failed.”

When asked if she will now con­sid­er ban­ning noisy fire­works al­to­geth­er, Prime Min­is­ter re­spond­ed by say­ing she is still giv­ing the pub­lic a chance to re­deem them­selves.

“The law has been in ef­fect for about a month. I am go­ing to give it a cou­ple months again, but if there is no im­prove­ment, I will ban it out­right.”

Her Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen told Guardian Me­dia that she sup­ports a move to noise­less fire­works and light shows.

Ameen said her con­stituents com­plained about the noise on Old Year’s Night.

“Some of my con­stituents ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that there were peo­ple who were break­ing the law on Old Year’s Night, in par­tic­u­lar light­ing fire­works out­side of the pre­scribed time for the law. And it means that the po­lice have some work cut out. Sev­er­al of my What­sApp groups with my res­i­dents in St Au­gus­tine con­stituen­cy would have had that feed­back and peo­ple who mes­saged me pri­vate­ly to say, ‘what’s go­ing on, why are the po­lice not here?’”

The Min­is­ter added, “I know that en­force­ment al­so has some lo­gis­tics in­volved, and my hope is that as peo­ple get more ac­quaint­ed with what the new laws are, they will be able to in­clude the po­lice of­fi­cers so that they could have bet­ter en­force­ment.”

TTPS and the So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion said they will con­sult with their mem­bers to iden­ti­fy any chal­lenges en­coun­tered in en­forc­ing the law.

Mean­while, two an­i­mal-wel­fare or­gan­i­sa­tions say the new fire­works leg­is­la­tion failed to act as a de­ter­rent and are now push­ing for a com­plete ban.

Be­tween De­cem­ber 20 and New Year’s Day, the T&T So­ci­ety for the Pre­ven­tion of Cru­el­ty to An­i­mals (TTSP­CA) and the An­i­mal Wel­fare Net­work re­port­ed re­ceiv­ing more than 100 com­plaints of fire­works be­ing set off al­most every night, fre­quent­ly out­side the legal­ly per­mit­ted hours, in­clud­ing in the ear­ly morn­ing.

They said the re­ports came from com­mu­ni­ties across T&T, with res­i­dents liken­ing the noise to ex­plo­sions and bombs.

Ac­cord­ing to the groups, pets ex­pe­ri­enced se­vere dis­tress, pan­ic and in­juries, while res­i­dents com­plained of anx­i­ety and loss of sleep.

They main­tain that the law is dif­fi­cult to en­force and are call­ing for an out­right ban on fire­works, along with strict con­trols on their im­por­ta­tion, sale and pos­ses­sion.

The Sum­ma­ry Of­fences (Amend­ment) Act No 13 of 2025, which took ef­fect on De­cem­ber 19, 2025, man­dates that all peo­ple over 18 must ob­tain a $100 per­mit from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to dis­charge fire­works, ex­cept dur­ing spe­cif­ic grace pe­ri­ods on pub­lic hol­i­days (8 pm to 9 pm) and Old Year’s Night (11.30 pm to 12.30 am).

The law strict­ly pro­hibits the use of fire­works with­in a half-mile ra­dius of sen­si­tive ar­eas such as hos­pi­tals, zoos, an­i­mal shel­ters, air­ports and for­est re­serves, while al­so ban­ning their dis­charge on pub­lic streets or to­ward build­ings and ve­hi­cles.

En­force­ment has been stream­lined through a new $450 fixed-penal­ty no­tice tick­et sys­tem, and the po­lice are now legal­ly au­tho­rised to use mo­bile phone video record­ings as ev­i­dence to pros­e­cute vi­o­la­tors who cre­ate a pub­lic nui­sance or dan­ger.