Party-goers, promoters show consideration

THE EDITOR: The traffic caused by last weekend’s fetes in Chaguaramas was horrendous to say the least but it is not an isolated example of the inconvenience and needless stress suffered by the many people who have chosen not to be part of these large events. It is definitely time that something is done about the size of these events in areas where our roads just cannot handle the traffic. Driving through Bayshore on Saturday night, trying to get home to my family, I saw first hand how the narrow residential street was turned into a choked one way street. There was no way that any Bayshore resident could have left his/her for any reason for many hours during that night.

No doubt other residential areas on the way down to Chaguaramas suffered the same fate as drivers tried all kinds of short cuts which only served to make the situation ten times worse. It is bad enough for the people who are going to these events who have paid quite a large sum of money for tickets to have to spend hours in traffic getting to and from but it is totally unfair that people who are going about their own private business have to be subjected to the same inconvenience. Organisers of neighbourhood fetes know that it is difficult to get approval to throw a fete because of the noise and the disturbance caused to residents. How then can these large promoters be given permission to throw these massive fetes that cause such a major disturbance to so many?

There just has to be a way to deal with this. Promoters, in their efforts to accumulate huger profits, are planning larger and larger events and it is time to put some serious controls on what is going on. It is not just Chaguaramas. There are often huge events at Maracas Bay and at Manzanilla beach which cause the same major traffic problems. I remember one Easter weekend trying to get to Mayaro and spending several hours in a traffic jam because of an event at Manzanilla beach. It is not just the traffic that is a problem either. At a public beach people should be allowed to relax and soak up the sun and the sound of the sea without having to be subjected to loud music and drunk people taking over the whole beach. Our party mentality has led us to believe that only the partying people are important. Everyone else just has to stay home and shut up.

NICOLE SOLIS
Glencoe