Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

The Po­lice Ser­vice is send­ing a stern re­minder that any­one caught breach­ing the scratch bomb ban that was im­ple­ment­ed last year, can be fined $20,000 or ten years im­pris­on­ment or for­fei­ture of the items.

This re­minder was giv­en by act­ing Supt Wayne Mys­tar dur­ing yes­ter­day week­ly brief­ing held at the Po­liceAd­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, in Port of Spain.

Mys­tar al­so warned of fines if any­one mis­us­es fire­works in pub­lic spaces dur­ing the up­com­ing Di­vali, Christ­mas and New Year’s Day cel­e­bra­tions.

“The pub­lic is al­so ad­vised to note the Ex­plo­sives (Pro­hi­bi­tion of Scratch Bombs) Or­der 2018, in keep­ing with Sec­tion 37 of the Ex­plo­sives Act Chap­ter 16:02. The Or­der pro­hibits per­sons from man­u­fac­tur­ing, im­port­ing, keep­ing, con­vey­ing or sell­ing a scratch bomb. Per­sons found breach­ing the Or­der may be li­able up­on in­dict­ment, to a fine of $20,000.00 or ten years im­pris­on­ment or for­fei­ture of the items, “ Mys­tar said.

Ac­cord­ing to the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act Chap­ter 11:02, Sec­tion 99, “any per­son who throws, casts, sets fire to, or lets off any fire­works with­in any town is li­able to a fine of one thou­sand dol­lars.”

With re­gard to the Sale of Fire­works; the Ex­plo­sives Act Chap­ter 16:02 Sec­tion 10. (1) clear­ly states that - “No per­son oth­er than a whole­sale or re­tail deal­er shall sell gun­pow­der, or of­fer or ex­pose the same for sale. Sec­tion 10. (2) states- Any per­son who con­tra­venes the pro­vi­sions of this sec­tion is li­able to a fine of two thou­sand dol­lars.”

“Scratch bombs have been banned and there are laws in place to re­strict the unau­tho­rised sale and mis­use of fire­works, “ he added.

In an ad­di­tion­al re­lease sent out by the TTPS, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith urged the pub­lic to be mind­ful of the detri­men­tal ef­fects that noise, par­tic­u­lar­ly that of fire­works, can have on sen­si­tive groups in our com­mu­ni­ties; such as new­born ba­bies, the el­der­ly and an­i­mals.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice is en­cour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to act re­spon­si­bly and make safe­ty a pri­or­i­ty at all times. Mem­bers of the pub­lic should be wary that they can cause se­ri­ous in­jury to users, oth­er per­sons or re­sult in ma­jor dam­age to prop­er­ty, “ the re­lease stat­ed.