Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Ex­ces­sive noise pol­lu­tion is not mere­ly a nui­sance but a grow­ing pub­lic health cri­sis that con­tributes to frus­tra­tion, con­fronta­tion, and vi­o­lence in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

This was the warn­ing from Lindy Ann Ram­sook, vice-pres­i­dent of Cit­i­zens Against Noise Pol­lu­tion TT (CANPTT), as she ad­dressed the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s first pub­lic fo­rum on noise pol­lu­tion at the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion’s Au­di­to­ri­um on Fri­day.

Ram­sook said pro­longed ex­po­sure to ex­ces­sive noise could leave peo­ple feel­ing help­less and des­per­ate, with some vic­tims con­tem­plat­ing re­tal­i­a­tion against those re­spon­si­ble for the dis­tur­bance.

“Noise pol­lu­tion is es­ca­lat­ing in­to vi­o­lence in this coun­try,” she said.

Ram­sook point­ed to sev­er­al in­ci­dents over the years in which dis­putes over loud mu­sic al­leged­ly re­sult­ed in as­saults, stab­bings and deaths.

She cit­ed a 2011 at­tempt­ed mur­der fol­low­ing an ar­gu­ment over loud mu­sic; the 2014 stab­bing death of Kwe­si Lewis af­ter he con­front­ed a group about loud mu­sic; a 2015 at­tack in­volv­ing a man who re­port­ed­ly ob­ject­ed to loud mu­sic be­cause his ba­by was ill; a 2021 mur­der in St James re­port­ed­ly linked to ten­sions over loud mu­sic; and a 2022 in­ci­dent in which a new moth­er was al­leged­ly as­sault­ed af­ter ask­ing an au­dio shop next door to re­duce its vol­ume.

She al­so re­ferred to the deaths of two peo­ple at Orop­une Gar­dens, Pi­ar­co, in April 2024, al­leged­ly fol­low­ing noise com­plaints, as well as more re­cent in­ci­dents in­volv­ing loud mu­sic, fire­works and am­pli­fied en­ter­tain­ment.

“These are just the ones that have made main­stream news,” Ram­sook said. “There are many that do not.”

She said loud mu­sic was the most fre­quent­ly cit­ed source of noise com­plaints re­ceived by CANPTT, with com­plaints in­volv­ing par­ties, bars, en­ter­tain­ment venues, ve­hi­cles, neigh­bours and out­door events.

Oth­er sources, she said, in­clud­ed in­dus­tri­al and com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ties, con­struc­tion, weld­ing and fab­ri­ca­tion, ex­ces­sive an­i­mal noise, mod­i­fied ve­hi­cle ex­hausts and en­gine revving, mo­bile sound sys­tems and fire­works.

Ram­sook said the scale of the prob­lem was re­flect­ed in of­fi­cial com­plaint fig­ures.

Ac­cord­ing to fig­ures cit­ed at the fo­rum, the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) re­ceived about 900 noise com­plaints through its hot­line be­tween 2018 and 2022, while the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice record­ed 7,484 re­ports in 2023 and 6,287 in 2024.

“Let that sink in, ladies and gen­tle­men. The fig­ures are stark,” Ram­sook said.

She said chron­ic ex­po­sure to ex­ces­sive noise, com­bined with sleep de­pri­va­tion, could af­fect peo­ple’s emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion and judge­ment.

“Pro­longed ex­po­sure to ex­ces­sive noise breeds frus­tra­tion, help­less­ness and des­per­a­tion,” she said.

Ram­sook said CANPTT was al­so con­cerned about the dif­fi­cul­ties cit­i­zens faced when at­tempt­ing to make com­plaints.

She de­scribed a sit­u­a­tion in which res­i­dents were some­times re­ferred be­tween the po­lice and the EMA, with nei­ther agency im­me­di­ate­ly ac­cept­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“The EMA’s re­mit is to han­dle com­mer­cial, in­dus­tri­al and event-based noise com­plaints while di­rect­ing im­me­di­ate res­i­den­tial dis­tur­bances to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice,” she said.

She cit­ed Eu­ro­pean En­vi­ron­ment Agency es­ti­mates link­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal noise to pre­ma­ture deaths, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, chron­ic sleep dis­tur­bance and sig­nif­i­cant loss­es in healthy life years.

“In Trinidad and To­ba­go, CANPTT has reached the point of call­ing it a pub­lic health emer­gency.”

CANPTT vice-pres­i­dent Tama­ra Chatar said she was al­so a vic­tim of ex­ces­sive noise and had ex­pe­ri­enced in­tim­i­da­tion af­ter com­plain­ing.

She said many res­i­dents were afraid to com­plain be­cause they feared con­fronta­tion or re­tal­i­a­tion.

“Afraid in your own home be­cause you asked for the law,” Chatar said.

She re­count­ed her own ex­pe­ri­ence in­volv­ing a noisy bar, say­ing that al­though she made a po­lice re­port af­ter be­ing threat­ened, no ac­tion was tak­en.

“No­body should be in­tim­i­dat­ed to seek peace in­side their own house,” she said.

Sev­en­ty-two-year-old Laven­tille res­i­dent Don­ald Red­mond told the fo­rum that he had en­dured noise pol­lu­tion from a near­by bar for decades.

Red­mond called on so­cial or­gan­i­sa­tions and re­li­gious lead­ers to be­come more in­volved in the fight against ex­ces­sive noise.

He al­so crit­i­cised some re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions for adding to the prob­lem.

“God is not deaf,” Red­mond said

Valmik­ki Ar­joon, vice-pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, said noise pol­lu­tion should al­so be viewed as an eco­nom­ic is­sue.

Ar­joon said the coun­try need­ed a thriv­ing en­ter­tain­ment and hos­pi­tal­i­ty sec­tor, but eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment should not come at the ex­pense of peo­ple’s qual­i­ty of life.

“Good eco­nom­ics al­so teach­es us that growth should raise our stan­dard of liv­ing, raise our qual­i­ty of life—not sim­ply raise the vol­ume,” he said.

He al­so warned that ex­ces­sive noise could af­fect work­places, with tired work­ers po­ten­tial­ly mak­ing mis­takes, ar­riv­ing late or miss­ing work.

Ar­joon called for a na­tion­al as­sess­ment of noise pol­lu­tion hotspots and the in­tro­duc­tion of tech­nol­o­gy to mon­i­tor sound lev­els.

Ar­joon said the ex­ist­ing $1,500 fine for noise vi­o­la­tions was in­ad­e­quate and pro­posed in­creas­ing it to $15,000, par­tic­u­lar­ly for busi­ness­es with re­peat­ed sub­stan­ti­at­ed com­plaints.

“When the fine costs less than com­pli­ance, you haven’t built a de­ter­rent—you’ve built an in­cen­tive to stay loud,” he said.

Ar­joon stressed that the ob­jec­tive should not be to shut down busi­ness­es or si­lence Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­ture.