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Sunday, March 16, 2025

Music trucks face scrutiny from Licensing Enforcement Team

by

Anna-Lisa Paul
11 days ago
20250305
Liscensing Officers yesterday stopped this music truck in the Belmont Exotic Stylish Sailors mas band at the corner of Tragarete Road and Victoria Avenue, because it exceeded height stipulations.

Liscensing Officers yesterday stopped this music truck in the Belmont Exotic Stylish Sailors mas band at the corner of Tragarete Road and Victoria Avenue, because it exceeded height stipulations.

Roger Jacob

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.”


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