‘Stink and Dutty’ exit rush triggers traffic chaos in the West

Ot­to Car­ring­ton &

Jensen La Vende

Thou­sands of pa­trons at­tempt­ing to leave the ‘Stink and Dut­ty’ fete held at the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port were caught in hours-long traf­fic con­ges­tion yes­ter­day, leav­ing the West­ern Main Road se­vere­ly grid­locked. The traf­fic night­mare prompt­ed some rev­ellers to seek al­ter­na­tive routes by sea to get home.

From ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, traf­fic along the West­ern Main Road slowed to a crawl, with long lines of ve­hi­cles stretch­ing for kilo­me­tres which last­ed well in­to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

So­cial me­dia was flood­ed with im­ages and videos of mo­torists stuck for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods, with lit­tle move­ment as traf­fic fun­nelled out of the venue.

As de­lays mount­ed, nu­mer­ous pa­trons opt­ed to ex­it the event by wa­ter. A video post­ed on­line showed scores of pa­trons at the near­by jet­ty, board­ing small pri­vate boats in a bid to leave the area.

‘Stink and Dut­ty’ is one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ma­jor J’Ou­vert-style Car­ni­val events, at­tract­ing thou­sands of lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al pa­trons an­nu­al­ly.

The event is known for its high-en­er­gy for­mat in­volv­ing wa­ter, paint, pow­der and foam, and typ­i­cal­ly fea­tures per­for­mances by lead­ing So­ca artistes and DJs.

The fete is host­ed by Scorch, Il­lu­sions, Air Com­mit­tee and So­ca Artiste Voice.

Of­fi­cials said the event, which be­gan around 3 am yes­ter­day, end­ed around 10 am.

It was held at the Ch­agu­ra­mas He­li­port.

While no ma­jor in­ci­dents were re­port­ed dur­ing yes­ter­day’s con­ges­tion, the ex­pe­ri­ence raised ques­tions about fu­ture plan­ning for large events in Ch­aguara­mas.

Guardian Me­dia was told that the traf­fic was com­pound­ed by an ac­ci­dent along the West­ern Main Road where a car turned over its hood.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert took to so­cial me­dia to chas­tise the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to al­low the He­li­port to be used.

“Stink and Du­ty fete in a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fa­cil­i­ty. Imag­ine that. A crazy breach of De­fence Force reg­u­la­tions and pro­ce­dures. Feters wan­der­ing all over an Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre, all on top of Coast Guard boats.”

At­tempts to con­tact Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin, as well as the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Andy Hutchin­son, were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.

Calls to the vice pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Asha Greene, al­so went unan­swered, as well as calls to ‘Stink and Dut­ty’ pro­mot­er and busi­ness­man Kwe­si “Hy­pa Hop­pa” Hop­kin­son.

Last year, the Gov­ern­ment banned the use of venues owned or man­aged by the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) for Car­ni­val fetes and re­lat­ed events. This in­cludes fa­cil­i­ties such as the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA), where the event was nor­mal­ly held.

The ban was an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in No­vem­ber and took im­me­di­ate ef­fect, less than three months be­fore Car­ni­val sea­son.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the de­ci­sion was tak­en part­ly in re­sponse to con­cerns about noise pol­lu­tion af­fect­ing near­by res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties.