CANPTT criticises authorities over lack of fireworks enforcement

Cit­i­zens Against Noise Pol­lu­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go (CANPTT) has ac­cused law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties of fail­ing to up­hold the law fol­low­ing wide­spread re­ports of il­le­gal fire­works ac­tiv­i­ty on Old Year’s Night.

The group said it re­ceived nu­mer­ous com­plaints from com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try, in­di­cat­ing that fire­works were dis­charged well out­side legal­ly per­mit­ted hours, with lit­tle or no in­ter­ven­tion by au­thor­i­ties.

Loud mu­sic re­port­ed­ly con­tin­ued in­to the ear­ly hours, adding to res­i­dents’ dis­tress.

CANPTT vice pres­i­dent of pub­lic re­la­tions Tama­ra Chatar de­scribed the breach­es as wide­spread and pro­longed.

“What we wit­nessed was a to­tal dis­re­gard for the law, com­pound­ed by neg­li­gence on the part of those re­spon­si­ble for en­force­ment,” Chatar said. “The leg­is­la­tion ex­ists, but with­out con­sis­tent fines and ac­tion, it be­comes mean­ing­less.”

Re­ports came from ar­eas in­clud­ing Diego Mar­tin, Cou­va, Ch­agua­nas, St He­le­na, Ari­ma, Arou­ca and Mara­bel­la, among oth­er res­i­den­tial dis­tricts. Chatar said com­pli­ance col­lapsed in the ab­sence of vis­i­ble en­force­ment.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion ac­knowl­edged the Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent in­tro­duc­tion of fire­works leg­is­la­tion and the re­newed na­tion­al fo­cus on the is­sue, say­ing it sig­nalled recog­ni­tion that un­reg­u­lat­ed fire­works can cause in­jury, trau­ma and pub­lic harm.

“Plac­ing at­ten­tion on fire­works is an im­por­tant step, and we sup­port gen­uine ef­forts to im­prove pub­lic safe­ty,” Chatar said. “But at­ten­tion with­out en­force­ment does not pro­tect cit­i­zens.”

She added that the fail­ure to con­trol fire­works high­light­ed a deep­er, long-stand­ing prob­lem with noise reg­u­la­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. De­spite ex­ist­ing laws, en­force­ment re­mains weak and frag­ment­ed, with res­i­dents of­ten un­clear whether re­spon­si­bil­i­ty lies with the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty or the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

“For years, cit­i­zens have been bounced be­tween agen­cies while com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ue to suf­fer,” Chatar said. “This is not re­sis­tance to the law — it is a cri­sis of con­fi­dence in en­force­ment.”

CANPTT al­so re­port­ed se­ri­ous com­plaints of pan­ic at­tacks, anx­i­ety, sleep de­pri­va­tion and psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tress, par­tic­u­lar­ly among in­fants, the el­der­ly and peo­ple with men­tal health or sen­so­ry con­di­tions.

“This is no longer a mi­nor in­con­ve­nience,” Chatar said. “It is a pub­lic health con­cern af­fect­ing mul­ti­ple com­mu­ni­ties at the same time.”

While fire­works are sea­son­al, the group warned that noise pol­lu­tion is a year-round is­sue and cau­tioned against al­low­ing the fo­cus on fire­works to over­shad­ow broad­er en­force­ment fail­ures.

“Fire­works in the hands of the gen­er­al pub­lic, with­out mean­ing­ful over­sight, has failed,” Chatar said. “More im­por­tant­ly, the wider sys­tem of noise reg­u­la­tion has failed.”

CANPTT is call­ing for ur­gent and com­pre­hen­sive noise pol­lu­tion re­form, in­clud­ing clear en­force­ment au­thor­i­ty, ac­count­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms and mean­ing­ful con­se­quences for breach­es.

“Un­til these is­sues are ad­dressed,” Chatar said, “com­mu­ni­ties will con­tin­ue to wait—and suf­fer—while laws re­main large­ly sym­bol­ic.”

Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein said based on anec­do­tal ev­i­dence re­ports from his con­stituen­cy, San Juan/Barataria, there was a large lev­el of com­pli­ance with the new fire­work amend­ments.

“But we still have those who de­cid­ed to break the law. I think the Prime Min­is­ter was very clear when she said if you can­not ad­here to the law, we will have to do what we have to do as a gov­ern­ment, in or­der to bring that lev­el of peace to neigh­bour­hoods.

“So, again, there were the one or two per­sons who de­cid­ed to break the law and if the Prime Min­is­ter, in her wis­dom, says there is a com­plete ban, then you will have to face the con­se­quences of your ac­tions,” he said.