Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Wood­brook res­i­dents liv­ing near the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um and the Jean Pierre Com­plex are ques­tion­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to ban fetes at those sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

Carl Ahy­ee, 82, who spent the last 40 years liv­ing alone on Ana and De Ver­teuil streets, said he has grown ac­cus­tomed to the noise, so it no longer af­fects him.

“How long Car­ni­val is, and our body, our brains, our what­ev­er, now that we’re old­er, we get used to it. And that is our econ­o­my that is bring­ing mon­ey in­to the coun­try, so what she wants us to do is stop Car­ni­val,” he said.

Ahy­ee said he was nev­er one of the res­i­dents com­plain­ing about noise dur­ing Car­ni­val and will en­joy the en­ter­tain­ment from his home.

“That ain’t both­er­ing me, I lis­ten to the mu­sic, I do en­joy it, un­til, well, I fall asleep,” he said.

Yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pand­ed her Gov­ern­ment’s clam­p­down on noise pol­lu­tion, or­der­ing an im­me­di­ate halt to fetes at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um and the Jean Pierre Com­plex ex­cept dur­ing the de­fined Car­ni­val win­dow. The Prime Min­is­ter said she in­struct­ed the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Min­is­ter of Sport on Mon­day to im­pose the re­stric­tion, with ex­cep­tions on­ly from the Thurs­day be­fore Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day un­til the Sat­ur­day af­ter. She said all fetes and par­ties at Min­istry of Sport fa­cil­i­ties must now be­gin no ear­li­er than 12 pm and end at 10 pm, and that the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion has been di­rect­ed to hire acoustic en­gi­neers to re­design sound sys­tems to min­imise noise and vi­bra­tions for near­by com­mu­ni­ties.

The an­nounce­ment fol­lows last week’s de­ci­sion to stop all fetes at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my.

But Ahy­ee was not the on­ly el­der­ly res­i­dent sur­prised by Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ment. Osiris Moreno, who lives just me­ters from the sta­di­um, ex­pressed a sim­i­lar view.

“We know that is oc­ca­sion­al, it’s not every day, and it’s part of the cul­ture, so, to do a thing like that is chang­ing the cul­ture,” Moreno, who lives near a pan yard, ex­plained.

The res­i­dent urged the Prime Min­is­ter to con­sid­er the views of oth­ers when mak­ing de­ci­sions.

Hunter Street res­i­dent Michael Guy James added that he was sur­prised peo­ple were still com­plain­ing about noise in his com­mu­ni­ty.

“I guess she’s try­ing to be po­lit­i­cal­ly cor­rect for some peo­ple, but as far as I am con­cerned, it’s Car­ni­val that’s a part of Car­ni­val, and we should be used to it by now,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia al­so con­tact­ed Lynette Dol­ly, out­go­ing pres­i­dent of the Wood­brook Res­i­dents’ As­so­ci­a­tion, who said that was not what they asked for, as they al­ready have an agree­ment with the pro­duc­ers who host events at those two sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

“Dur­ing the year we doh re­al­ly have a prob­lem with the sta­di­um be­cause over the years ago we met with the man­age­ment of the sta­di­um and then Dean Ackin he met with us and it was agreed that when they hav­ing fetes in the sta­di­um they have it on the side with Mar­aval Park­way so it doesn’t both­er us,” she ex­plained.

She said what is re­al­ly need­ed is con­sul­ta­tion with pro­mot­ers, res­i­dents, and oth­er stake­hold­ers. How­ev­er, the mu­sic from the trucks that tra­verse to and from the So­ca Drome on Car­ni­val Tues­day is what they have an is­sue with.

“The deci­bel lev­el, that is where we have a prob­lem,” she said.

Calls and mes­sages to the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Michelle Ben­jamin, and the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee (NCC), Pe­ter Kan­hai, went unan­swered up to late yes­ter­day.

But for­mer Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts min­is­ter, Ran­dall Mitchell, de­scribed the Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy as rushed and un­planned, adding that it will not curb noise pol­lu­tion.

“It is ad hoc, half-baked, knee-jerk, and ar­bi­trary pol­i­cy by Prime Min­is­te­r­i­al tweet,” he said.

He ques­tioned how the “pol­i­cy” is sup­posed to work if these bans are on­ly at gov­ern­ment sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties, hint­ing that they will use pri­vate or cor­po­ra­tion-owned fa­cil­i­ties.

The for­mer min­is­ter said the ad-hoc ap­proach re­gard­ing the en­ter­tain­ment and event-based sec­tors of the econ­o­my is like­ly to cause sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic dis­tress for the many par­tic­i­pants who earn a liv­ing dur­ing this pe­ri­od.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the pro­mot­ers’ as­so­ci­a­tion for com­ment but was un­suc­cess­ful.

On Jan­u­ary 1, the an­nu­al fete, First Jam, was set to hap­pen at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um. Event pro­mot­er Kwe­si “Hy­pa Hop­pa” Hop­kin­son crit­i­cised the tim­ing of the ban.

“The sea­son starts next month. My biggest ques­tion is, couldn’t this be re­vert­ed to af­ter Car­ni­val, so at least the in­dus­try knows that these venues are no longer avail­able for use?” he asked.

The pro­mot­er said they had al­ready start­ed sell­ing tick­ets for the event and called for con­sul­ta­tion.

“This is the first fete for Car­ni­val. Are we be­ing tar­get­ed, vic­timised? I’m kind of con­fused with what’s go­ing on,” he said.

Ven­dors who sell out­side the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um and Jean Pierre Com­plex de­scribed Car­ni­val as their peak sea­son and said the Prime Min­is­ter’s pol­i­cy will im­pact their al­ready lim­it­ed in­come.

“It will af­fect us plen­ty, so it’s a bad thing,” a ven­dor said.

An­oth­er ven­dor said the de­ci­sion was made too close to Car­ni­val.

“It will af­fect the liveli­hood be­cause most of the youths does come out in the night, no­body com­ing fete 12 o’clock in the day, to do what, burn in the sun?”

A tick­et re­seller, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said both fa­cil­i­ties have been sta­ples for Car­ni­val fetes over the decades, and the ban may now dis­cour­age pro­mot­ers, on whom they de­pend to buy tick­ets ear­ly.