An­na-Lisa Paul

an­na-lia.paul@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior Re­porter

The spe­cial unit com­pris­ing of­fi­cers from the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was kept busy en­forc­ing ve­hi­cle reg­u­la­tions over the Car­ni­val week­end.

Even af­ter warn­ing band own­ers and mas lead­ers that their trucks could be pulled off the Car­ni­val cir­cuit for non-com­pli­ance days be­fore the cul­mi­na­tion of the fes­tiv­i­ties, at least two bands were in­con­ve­nienced af­ter this hap­pened on Car­ni­val Sun­day at South Quay, Port-of-Spain; and along Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Wood­brook, on Mon­day.

Mean­while, the op­er­a­tor of a mu­sic truck for the band Bel­mont Ex­ot­ic Styl­ish Sailors faced some heat from the en­force­ment team at 10.05 am yes­ter­day, when he was stopped for ex­ceed­ing the height re­quire­ment.

Dar­nell Hart, who was re­spon­si­ble for the mu­sic truck and trail­er, ad­mit­ted he was new to the Car­ni­val op­er­a­tions and was forced to turn the top-most mu­sic box on its side in or­der to com­ply with the height re­quire­ments so they would be al­lowed to con­tin­ue.

Speak­ing with re­porters about that in­ci­dent dur­ing a walk­a­bout in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP), Crime, Richard Smith, who is the Gold Com­man­der for Car­ni­val 2025, said, “We had one per­son tak­en off the route for in­fringe­ment of spec­i­fi­ca­tions of these per­mits.”

Say­ing trucks were be­ing in­spect­ed in every band by a spe­cial en­force­ment team, Smith said Sun­day’s in­ci­dent al­so oc­curred af­ter the truck went be­yond the height stip­u­la­tion and pulled down over­head lines.

He said, “We had that truck tak­en off the route.”

Un­able to say what penal­ties the own­ers/op­er­a­tors faced for non-com­pli­ance, he said, “We were ex­plor­ing sanc­tions for per­sons who don’t com­ply with the stip­u­la­tions as stat­ed by Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty.”

Smith said al­though the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion stopped in­spect­ing these trucks at their com­pound a few years ago, they pro­vid­ed the po­lice with “stip­u­la­tions to the pro­mot­ers as well as those who are ap­ply­ing.”

Re­gard­ing yes­ter­day’s in­ci­dent at the cor­ner of Vic­to­ria Av­enue and Tra­garete Road, As­sis­tant Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Prakash Chaitram ex­plained that the truck had ex­ceed­ed the four-me­tre height stip­u­la­tion.

He said, “Li­cens­ing of­fi­cers would have giv­en them a per­mit for four me­tres so right now, they have crossed that four-me­tre re­stric­tion by one-third, so they sup­posed to be 13 feet, two inch­es...but they are 14 feet, six inch­es, so we are ask­ing them to pull off the box and put it to lie down.”

He said once this was done, the truck would have been al­lowed to pro­ceed as it would no longer be a po­ten­tial threat in terms of pulling down high-volt­ag wires.

He con­firmed a sim­i­lar in­ci­dent oc­curred on Sun­day dur­ing the host­ing of Kid­dies Car­ni­val.

Chaitram said, “We are not charg­ing the dri­ver. We are just ask­ing him to turn the box on its side, se­cure it and go on your way.”

Smith lat­er told Guardian Me­dia, “Gen­er­al­ly, we have had com­pli­ance from the band lead­ers.”