Mayor upset over shutdown of midnight mas

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Mid­night Mas in San Fer­nan­do was abrupt­ly shut down by po­lice just over an hour be­fore mid­night on Car­ni­val Mon­day, spark­ing out­rage among mas­quer­aders, band lead­ers and city of­fi­cials.

The event, one of the South’s sig­na­ture Car­ni­val at­trac­tions out­side of J’Ou­vert, had been sched­uled to end at 1 am. How­ev­er, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 10.55 pm, mu­sic trucks were or­dered to cut the sound and bands were forced to dis­perse.

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Har­ris took to so­cial me­dia short­ly af­ter, ex­press­ing his frus­tra­tion.

“So Mid­night Mas which was agreed to be shut down at 1am in San Fer­nan­do has been shut down at 10:55pm by TTPS … I will be re­spon­si­ble with my ut­ter­ances, and hope­ful­ly we can get some straight an­swers!!!” Har­ris wrote.

He added, “To the mas­quer­aders I apol­o­gize on be­half of the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee. This Car­ni­val will tru­ly be re­mem­bered, con­tin­ue to en­joy what’s left of Car­ni­val re­spon­si­bly.”

Among the reg­is­tered bands par­tic­i­pat­ing in Mid­night Mas were Mid­night Jam­mers led by Cur­tis Williams, 2 Minx Pro­mo­tions head­ed by Tami­ka Noel, Rebel Na­tion un­der Mar­cus Bap­tist, South Is D Bess led by Lesa Gon­za­les, M.O.S Car­ni­val head­ed by Ad­dae Seon, Soleil Jou­vert led by Dar­i­an Ab­hi­ram, In­cep­tion man­aged by Dar­ren and De­von Har­ris, Rize Events & Rum Va­grants led by Joel Laka­too and Shel­don Alexan­der, and Fon­claire Steel Or­ches­tra un­der Gene Har­ri­son.

The shut­down al­so dis­rupt­ed a Pan on D Move com­pe­ti­tion or­gan­ised by Skif­fle Bunch Pan The­atre on Cof­fee Street. Sev­er­al steel­pan or­ches­tras were sched­uled to per­form when the event was halt­ed.

One steel­band or­gan­is­er said thou­sands of dol­lars had been spent prepar­ing for the com­pe­ti­tion, in­clud­ing trans­porta­tion, tun­ing and lo­gis­tics.

A Night Mas com­pe­ti­tion on Har­ris Prom­e­nade was al­so af­fect­ed.

As news of the shut­down spread, sev­er­al peo­ple took to so­cial me­dia to ex­press crit­i­cism.

Claire Glo­ria Sandy wrote, “No re­spect for South peo­ple, so many peo­ple came out just to hear pan. This need to stop. We the cit­i­zens of San Fer­nan­do wants the same re­spect giv­en to POS af­ter all we are the sec­ond City of this Coun­try.”

Akallia Bruno com­ment­ed, “Every year it’s the same thing that’s why I stopped play­ing mid­night mas be­cause po­lice even stops the truck and let the dj turn off the mu­sic.”

An­janie Pan­cham ques­tioned, “Peo­ple spend thou­sands of dol­lars to come and en­joy car­ni­val in Trinidad, why are they do­ing this to the peo­ple? Once a year they planned their va­ca­tion year­ly in ad­vance why do this to the peo­ple? Let them en­joy their time. Did the po­lice get or­ders to lock down Car­ni­val and from who.”

Can­dice Snell-Hamil­ton de­scribed the move as “a to­tal dis­re­spect to band lead­ers, mas­quer­ades, spec­ta­tors, even ven­dors,” adding that peo­ple in­vest­ed time and mon­ey to keep the cul­ture alive de­spite lim­it­ed fund­ing.

Mean­while, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has main­tained that there is a “se­cu­ri­ty blan­ket” across the coun­try for Car­ni­val. He has warned that of­fi­cers will act de­ci­sive­ly against any­one at­tempt­ing to bring weapons in­to Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties.

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer said se­cu­ri­ty is­sues had prompt­ed the ear­ly shut­down. He said this has been done in the past by the po­lice and is cus­tom­ary any­time there is a threat.