KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With prepa­ra­tions in place for the grand spec­ta­cle of Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris is en­cour­ag­ing rev­ellers to ex­pe­ri­ence J’Ou­vert in the south­ern city.

Speak­ing at the Kid­dies Car­ni­val yes­ter­day, Par­ris an­nounced that San Fer­nan­do, ike Port-of-Spain, would be im­ple­ment­ing a glass bot­tle ban dur­ing the cel­e­bra­tions.

“San Fer­nan­do, first and fore­most, is the safer Car­ni­val. If you love J’Ou­vert, San Fer­nan­do is the place to be. Our J’Ou­vert ex­pe­ri­ence is like no oth­er. Peo­ple play J’Ou­vert in Port of Spain, but that ex­pe­ri­ence can­not com­pare to San Fer­nan­do. So, we are invit­ing every­one to come, try J’Ou­vert, and stay for the mas,” he said

To en­sure a safe and en­joy­able cel­e­bra­tion, the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion has re­quest­ed ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel. Par­ris ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the ex­tra man­pow­er, in­clud­ing of­fi­cers from the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice and the var­i­ous Po­lice Ser­vice branch­es, would be avail­able for Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day.

He al­so as­sured that emer­gency ve­hi­cles would have unim­ped­ed ac­cess to and from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, with bands re­quired to low­er their mu­sic vol­ume when pass­ing the area.

“I spoke with As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Wayne Mys­tar this morn­ing, and all se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures ap­pear to be in place,” Par­ris said. “I want to thank the TTPS, es­pe­cial­ly Mr Mys­tar. Every­thing looks set, and I am tru­ly im­pressed by their work over the past few months. This lev­el of prepa­ra­tion did not hap­pen overnight—it took months of plan­ning, and I con­grat­u­late them on a job well done.”

A vi­brant Kid­dies Car­ni­val

De­spite brief show­ers, 22 ju­nior bands par­tic­i­pat­ed in yes­ter­day’s Kid­dies Car­ni­val pa­rade, which start­ed at Cir­cu­lar Road, Mon Re­pos, and end­ed at Skin­ner Park. The vi­brant dis­play of cos­tumes re­flect­ed a no­table in­crease in par­tic­i­pa­tion com­pared to last year.

To ac­com­mo­date the growth, or­gan­is­ers co­or­di­nat­ed a sys­tem where one mu­sic truck ac­com­pa­nied two bands.

Par­ris ac­knowl­edged that in pre­vi­ous years, par­tic­i­pa­tion in San Fer­nan­do’s Car­ni­val had de­clined, at­tribut­ing this to var­i­ous fac­tors, in­clud­ing chal­lenges in fes­ti­val man­age­ment. How­ev­er, he as­sured that this year marked a turn­ing point as the com­mit­tee took a hands-on ap­proach, bas­ing the Car­ni­val of­fice with­in his work­space to close­ly mon­i­tor op­er­a­tions.

“This is a turn­ing point for San Fer­nan­do’s Car­ni­val. Some­one need­ed to take charge, un­der­stand the is­sues af­fect­ing mas­quer­aders, and ad­dress the ob­sta­cles pre­vent­ing the fes­ti­val from grow­ing as it should,” he said

He high­light­ed the suc­cess of San Fer­nan­do-based bands, such as Sparks and As­so­ci­a­tions, which have shown re­mark­able growth in just their sec­ond year.

Pa­rade routes and sched­ule

The route for J’Ou­vert, as well as Mon­day and Tues­day’s Pa­rade of the Bands, will be the same. Bands will start at Cir­cu­lar Road, and pro­ceed on­to Roy­al Road, Cof­fee Street, and Cipero Street be­fore en­ter­ing the Rien­zi Kir­ton High­way, where judg­ing will take place at the South­ern Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts. The pa­rade will con­tin­ue along In­de­pen­dence Av­enue, on­to Chancery Lane, High Street, and end at Li­brary Cor­ner. Mid­night mas will fol­low most of this route but will al­so in­clude Har­ris Prom­e­nade.

The sched­ule is as fol­lows:

J’Ou­vert: 4 am – 11am

Mon­day Pa­rade of the Bands: 1–6 pm

Mid­night Mas: 7 pm – Mid­night

Tues­day Pa­rade of the Bands: Noon on­wards