Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

The Samaan Es­tate, in St Clair, is fac­ing an un­cer­tain fu­ture as an event lo­ca­tion af­ter the High Court de­nied an ap­pli­ca­tion by prop­er­ty own­er In­grid Daniel and her es­tate to lift an in­junc­tion bar­ring events.

The ap­pli­ca­tion sought to chal­lenge the in­junc­tion brought about by a le­gal chal­lenge by Wil­fred Es­pinet on be­half of him­self and 12 mem­bers of the St Clair Res­i­dents As­so­ci­a­tion. On De­cem­ber 22, High Court Jus­tice Christo­pher Sieuc­hand ruled against the es­tate de­spite its le­gal team pre­sent­ing a cer­tifi­cate of ur­gency, seek­ing an oc­ca­sion­al li­cence for a New Year’s Day event and up­com­ing Car­ni­val events.

In the cer­tifi­cate of ur­gency, Daniel and the es­tate’s le­gal team ar­gued that “the pro­mot­ers of the events are in lim­bo as they are un­able at this late stage to find al­ter­na­tive venues to host their Car­ni­val events and may face the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing to can­cel these events at short no­tice.”

Ac­cord­ing to the cer­tifi­cate pre­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Thane Pierre, the es­tate has al­ready in­curred loss­es of more than $100,000 and will lose an­oth­er $330,000 should the in­junc­tion re­main in place un­til a fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion is made in the le­gal mat­ter.

Es­pinet and the 12 mem­bers of the St Clair Res­i­dents As­so­ci­a­tion sought an in­junc­tion against the es­tate and its own­ers on De­cem­ber 8 and it was grant­ed by Jus­tice Eleanor Joye Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well.

The or­der al­so pro­hibits Daniel and Samaan Es­tate Lim­it­ed from “block­ing or im­ped­ing the dri­ve­ways and gate­ways of the prop­er­ty of the ap­pli­cant and mem­bers of the St Clair Res­i­dents As­so­ci­a­tion with ob­struc­tions or nui­sance in­clud­ing in­con­sid­er­ate and in­dis­crim­i­nate park­ing and/or loi­ter­ing or crowds; and play­ing ex­ces­sive­ly loud mu­sic and caus­ing ex­ces­sive vi­bra­tions.”

The in­junc­tion was grant­ed the day the venue was used to host an event by the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion.

In his ap­pli­ca­tion, Es­pinet, 79, said the prop­er­ty was leased in 1920 for 199 years and pro­hibits that it be used or any part “from be­ing used or oc­cu­pied as a shop, or for the pur­pose of any pub­lic show or busi­ness or as bar­racks or oth­er sep­a­rate ten­e­ments or for any oth­er pur­pose or in oth­er any way than a sin­gle pri­vate dwelling house or build­ing ap­pur­tenant.”

He added that the prop­er­ty is next to his and he has lived there for the past 23 years and in June he no­ticed events hap­pen­ing next door.

He said re­ports to the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion were ig­nored as noth­ing was done to stop or cur­tail said events.

The Samaan Es­tate Lim­it­ed’s di­rec­tors Shawn Renville, Je­lani Daniel and Vishal Ma­haraj pre­vi­ous­ly ap­plied on Oc­to­ber 9 for an oc­ca­sion­al and an an­nu­al dance­hall li­cence.