TTPS: No charges laid under new fireworks law

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) says that as of Fri­day morn­ing, not a sin­gle per­son had been charged for fire­works-re­lat­ed of­fences since the new law came in­to force.

The in­for­ma­tion was pro­vid­ed by the TTPS Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit in re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on the en­force­ment of the Gov­ern­ment’s new fire­works law, which came in­to ef­fect on De­cem­ber 19.

When the leg­is­la­tion was passed, ques­tions were raised about its ef­fec­tive­ness, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­la­tion to en­force­ment by the TTPS.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands a de­tailed me­dia re­lease will be sent out by the TTPS dur­ing the course of to­day.

The Sum­ma­ry Of­fences (Amend­ment) Act No. 13 of 2025, which took ef­fect on De­cem­ber 19, 2025, man­dates that all per­sons over 18 must ob­tain a $100 per­mit from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to dis­charge fire­works, ex­cept dur­ing spe­cif­ic grace pe­ri­ods on pub­lic hol­i­days (8.00 pm to 9.00 pm) and Old Year’s Night (11.30 pm to 12.30 am).

The law strict­ly pro­hibits the use of fire­works with­in a half-mile ra­dius of sen­si­tive ar­eas such as hos­pi­tals, zoos, an­i­mal shel­ters, air­ports and for­est re­serves, while al­so ban­ning their dis­charge on pub­lic streets or to­wards build­ings and ve­hi­cles.

En­force­ment has been stream­lined through a new $450 fixed-penal­ty no­tice tick­et sys­tem, and the po­lice are now legal­ly au­tho­rised to use mo­bile phone video record­ings as ev­i­dence to pros­e­cute vi­o­la­tors who cre­ate a pub­lic nui­sance or dan­ger.

How­ev­er, at least two an­i­mal rights ad­vo­ca­cy groups be­lieve the law failed and are now call­ing for a com­plete ban on fire­works.

Be­tween De­cem­ber 20 and New Year’s Day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go So­ci­ety for the Pre­ven­tion of Cru­el­ty to An­i­mals (TTSP­CA) and the An­i­mal Wel­fare Net­work said it re­ceived more than 100 re­ports of fire­works be­ing dis­charged night­ly, of­ten out­side le­gal hours, in­clud­ing the ear­ly morn­ing.

In a state­ment post­ed to Face­book this morn­ing, the TTSP­CA said re­ports came from com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go, with res­i­dents de­scrib­ing the sounds as ex­plo­sions and bombs.

The groups say pets suf­fered ex­treme dis­tress, in­juries and pan­ic, while res­i­dents re­port­ed sleep­less­ness and anx­i­ety.

They ar­gue en­force­ment is im­prac­ti­cal and are now call­ing for a to­tal ban on fire­works, with con­trols placed on im­por­ta­tion, sale and pos­ses­sion.