KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

“Bor­ing and un­event­ful”—that’s how some Tarou­ba res­i­dents de­scribed Car­ni­val this year, with the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA) no­tably de­void of fetes for the first time in re­cent mem­o­ry.

For years, ma­jor events such as Xpe­ri­ence, Out In South and Stink n Dut­ty drew large crowds to the Tarou­ba venue, prized for its easy high­way ac­cess, am­ple park­ing and lo­gis­ti­cal ad­van­tages. But last No­vem­ber, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced a ban on fetes at the BLCA, cit­ing com­plaints about noise and dis­rup­tions to near­by com­mu­ni­ties.

Of­fi­cials of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UDe­COTT) con­firmed the pol­i­cy, not­ing that the fa­cil­i­ty was con­struct­ed pri­mar­i­ly for sport­ing events such as crick­et. They said dam­age and wear from non-sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, along with high main­te­nance costs not off­set by fete rev­enue, con­tributed to the de­ci­sion.

The move formed part of broad­er Gov­ern­ment plans to up­date noise pol­lu­tion laws and im­pose stricter con­trols on fetes, mu­sic trucks and sim­i­lar events na­tion­wide. Its im­pact was im­me­di­ate: sev­er­al Car­ni­val pro­mot­ers scram­bled to se­cure al­ter­na­tive venues for 2026, and Air Com­mit­tee can­celled its an­nu­al Out In South fete.

The Pro­mot­ers As­so­ci­a­tion la­belled the re­stric­tion “de­struc­tive” and harm­ful to the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor, while the Op­po­si­tion ques­tioned why the BLCA was sin­gled out and whether sim­i­lar bans could ex­tend to oth­er venues.

At the time, res­i­dents liv­ing near the fa­cil­i­ty ex­pressed mixed views. Some wel­comed the qui­eter sur­round­ings, while oth­ers said they en­joyed the mu­sic and en­er­gy the events brought. One res­i­dent pre­vi­ous­ly re­called that loud mu­sic oc­ca­sion­al­ly caused his home to vi­brate and dis­turbed his sleep, but he ac­knowl­edged the ex­cite­ment the fetes gen­er­at­ed for young peo­ple in the area.

When Guardian Me­dia re­vis­it­ed Tarou­ba yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, sev­er­al res­i­dents said the ab­sence of events left Car­ni­val feel­ing flat.

Sade Thomp­son de­scribed the sea­son as “bor­ing,” ex­plain­ing that she and her neigh­bours would of­ten lime out­side, lis­ten­ing to the per­for­mances and cre­at­ing their own at-home fete ex­pe­ri­ence.

“The mu­sic wasn’t that loud. When I heard about the com­plaints, I won­dered what they were re­al­ly talk­ing about,” she said. “Some­times we, the peo­ple who live here, are the ones at­tend­ing. It’s kind of bor­ing with­out it. I’d love for it to come back.”

Adri­an Lewis, who lives across the high­way from the acad­e­my, said he al­ways felt safe at­tend­ing the fetes be­cause po­lice and fire of­fi­cers were present to en­sure or­der. While ac­knowl­edg­ing that some neigh­bours had con­cerns about noise, he be­lieves most res­i­dents were not sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect­ed.

“Some peo­ple took it out of pro­por­tion,” he said. “If the par­ties re­turn next year, I’d prob­a­bly go to every one.”

Paula Allen, a 20-year Tarou­ba res­i­dent, said ear­li­er warn­ings had helped reg­u­late noise lev­els and that fetes had not posed a ma­jor prob­lem in re­cent years. She ar­gued that some week­end au­to shows were loud­er than Car­ni­val events and said she would wel­come the re­turn of fetes if prop­er­ly man­aged.

“Once they reg­u­late how the mu­sic is played, every­thing will be fine,” Allen said. “It’s just a sea­son, and we’re all Trinida­di­ans. I wouldn’t fuss about it.”

An­na Marchan said the fetes nev­er dis­turbed her.

“I would hear a lit­tle drum­ming, but that was it,” she said, adding that she would not ob­ject if the events re­sumed.