If leg­is­la­tion alone could change be­hav­iour, Trinidad and To­ba­go would have ush­ered in a qui­eter, more or­der­ly start to 2026. In­stead, the first ma­jor test of the new fire­works law has ex­posed the old and trou­bling re­al­i­ty of laws passed with­out en­force­ment that quick­ly be­come laws ig­nored.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice has con­firmed that, as of yes­ter­day morn­ing, not a sin­gle per­son had been charged for fire­works-re­lat­ed of­fences since the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences (Amend­ment) Act No. 13 of 2025 came in­to force on De­cem­ber 19. This rev­e­la­tion will sur­prise few cit­i­zens who en­dured ex­plo­sions, sleep­less­ness and anx­i­ety through­out the Christ­mas and New Year pe­ri­od.

The leg­is­la­tion it­self is not with­out mer­it. It in­tro­duced per­mits, re­strict­ed hours, des­ig­nat­ed no-fire­works zones around sen­si­tive ar­eas, and a fixed-penal­ty tick­et­ing sys­tem de­signed to sim­pli­fy en­force­ment. Po­lice were even grant­ed au­thor­i­ty to use mo­bile phone video record­ings as ev­i­dence. On pa­per, it ap­peared ro­bust. In prac­tice, it has so far not re­sult­ed in charges be­ing prof­fered against any of­fend­ers.

An­i­mal wel­fare groups re­port more than 100 night­ly com­plaints be­tween De­cem­ber 20 and New Year’s Day, with fire­works dis­charged well out­side le­gal hours across the coun­try. Cit­i­zens Against Noise Pol­lu­tion T&T (CANPTT) not­ed wide­spread, pro­longed breach­es on Old Year’s Night, com­pound­ed by loud mu­sic and an al­most com­plete ab­sence of vis­i­ble en­force­ment.

This is not mere­ly about fire­works or fes­tive ex­cess. It is about pub­lic con­fi­dence in the rule of law. When cit­i­zens are asked to buy per­mits, obey cur­fews and re­spect re­stric­tions — while oth­ers flout them with im­puni­ty — com­pli­ance col­laps­es. As CANPTT cor­rect­ly notes, this is not re­sis­tance to the law; it is a cri­sis of con­fi­dence in en­force­ment.

The dis­tress de­scribed should al­so not be min­imised. Pan­ic at­tacks, anx­i­ety, sleep de­pri­va­tion and psy­cho­log­i­cal harm, par­tic­u­lar­ly among in­fants, the el­der­ly and peo­ple with sen­so­ry or men­tal health con­di­tions, el­e­vate this be­yond nui­sance in­to the realm of pub­lic health.

The ex­pe­ri­ences of pet own­ers and an­i­mal shel­ters fur­ther un­der­score that the im­pacts are re­al, pre­dictable and re­peat­ed an­nu­al­ly.

An­i­mal rights groups have now called for a to­tal ban on fire­works, ar­gu­ing that con­trolled use by the gen­er­al pub­lic has failed. That po­si­tion de­serves con­sid­er­a­tion, but it should not be­come an easy es­cape from con­fronting the deep­er prob­lem. A ban in­tro­duced in­to the same weak en­force­ment en­vi­ron­ment risks be­com­ing yet an­oth­er sym­bol­ic ges­ture — loud­er on pa­per than in prac­tice.

Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein has sug­gest­ed there was “a large lev­el of com­pli­ance” based on re­ports from his con­stituen­cy. This as­sess­ment, how­ev­er, does not typ­i­fy the na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence, giv­en the vol­ume and ge­o­graph­ic spread of com­plaints. Ef­fec­tive gov­er­nance can­not re­ly on iso­lat­ed ex­pe­ri­ences. It must be in­formed by da­ta, en­force­ment out­comes and the lived re­al­i­ty of cit­i­zens na­tion­wide.

The fire­works law has in­ad­ver­tent­ly shone a harsh spot­light on a long-stand­ing fail­ure in noise reg­u­la­tion more broad­ly. For years, res­i­dents have been shuf­fled be­tween agen­cies, un­cer­tain whether re­spon­si­bil­i­ty lies with the po­lice or the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty. That am­bi­gu­i­ty serves no one ex­cept those who breach the law.

The way for­ward is not mere­ly more leg­is­la­tion, but clar­i­ty, co­or­di­na­tion and ac­count­abil­i­ty. If the State is se­ri­ous about peace in neigh­bour­hoods, it must en­sure laws are en­forced vis­i­bly, con­sis­tent­ly and fair­ly. Oth­er­wise, the noise will con­tin­ue — not just from fire­works, but from pub­lic frus­tra­tion at laws that ex­ist on­ly in name.