Cherisse Moe

Car­ni­val 2k10 mas­quer­aders will soon know whether they can re­lieve them­selves in the com­fort of "wee wee trucks," or if they will have to find al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion. Cul­ture Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald is sched­uled to meet with ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA) to­day, to dis­cuss fur­ther the fate of the portable toi­lets, com­mon­ly known as "wee wee trucks." NC­BA Pres­i­dent Owen Hinds said he hoped that the mat­ter would fi­nal­ly be re­solved at to­day's meet­ing.

"Up to now, we are not quite cer­tain what is re­al­ly go­ing on with the wee wee trucks," Owens said in an in­ter­view dur­ing yes­ter­day's NC­BA's Christ­mas lun­cheon, held at Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel. "Based on what May­or Brown told us, it is against the law to have the trucks for Car­ni­val," he said.

There were re­ports, last Oc­to­ber, that the portable toi­lets had been banned, as they posed a se­ri­ous pub­lic health haz­ard. How­ev­er, to date a res­o­lu­tion has not been reached on the is­sue. Hinds al­so not­ed that since the mat­ter of the le­gal­i­ty of the trucks had been raised late, he was hop­ing stake­hold­ers would strike a "mid­dle ground." He added: "My per­son­al feel­ing is that maybe some­thing can be done to ac­com­mo­date them in 2010. Maybe lat­er on they can deal with the le­gal rat­i­fi­ca­tions of it...But for now, maybe mas bands can be giv­en a tem­po­rary li­cence." NC­BA Sec­re­tary Wren­wrick Brown said his or­gan­i­sa­tion had sub­mit­ted a rec­om­men­da­tion to the min­is­ter on the is­sue, about two weeks ago, and he was pa­tient­ly await­ing her re­sponse.

"We ex­pect that some an­nounce­ment would be made to­mor­row (to­day). I can't say too much, but I think that what we have rec­om­mend­ed will be favourable to all. Car­ni­val will go on, and every­body will be hap­py." On the is­sue of prize mon­ey for win­ning Car­ni­val bands, Hinds said there was need for an in­crease in com­pen­sa­tion, es­pe­cial­ly for the medi­um, small and mi­ni-bands. "These peo­ple play mas for the love of it. Some­times they spend mon­ey from their own pock­ets, and if they don't sell cos­tumes they end up in debt, ow­ing peo­ple. "There needs to be an in­crease in prize mon­ey for win­ning bands. They have to cater for poor peo­ple." Hinds al­so ad­vised mas lead­ers to ad­here to the law as it re­lat­ed to food prepa­ra­tion and sale for Car­ni­val. "The law states that af­ter four hours, food can be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed. Band­lead­ers have been told to abide by that rule," he said.