An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A mil­lion-dol­lar birth­day cel­e­bra­tion for An­cel Vil­lafana that was sched­uled to take place at the Beetham Gar­dens Recre­ation­al Grounds to­day was can­celled late on Fri­day af­ter per­mis­sion was re­scind­ed by the au­thor­i­ties.

Vil­lafana, bet­ter known by his alias­es Prezzy and Chemist, had planned to cel­e­brate his 44th birth­day with a J’Ou­vert-like event, Fun Stop, fea­tur­ing Ja­maican dance­hall artistes Skeng, Pablo YG, Sha­neE, Tom­my Lee and Skil­libeng along with an ar­ray of lo­cal en­ter­tain­ers.

On Oc­to­ber 15, an oc­ca­sion­al bar li­cense and dance­hall li­cense were grant­ed to Steve Har­ford by the San Juan Laven­tille Li­cens­ing Com­mit­tee for the event which was be­ing pro­mot­ed by Roger Joseph of Prezi­dent Pro­mo­tions.

Har­ford, the hold­er of a spir­it re­tail­er li­cence, was re­port­ed­ly in charge of bar sales at the event.

The mat­ter was first heard by the li­cens­ing com­mit­tee at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate’s Court on No­vem­ber 7 and the li­cense was ini­tial­ly grant­ed. How­ev­er, as the day of the par­ty drew clos­er, fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions be­tween Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, an ap­pli­ca­tion was filed to re­view the de­ci­sion of the li­cens­ing com­mit­tee.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) said: “The re­view was premised on the ground that the li­cens­ing com­mit­tee did not prop­er­ly con­sid­er the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice as well as the in­her­ent risk the event posed to pub­lic safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, con­sid­er­ing the con­tin­u­ing gang vi­o­lence and re­port­ed crimes in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion and en­vi­rons.”

Af­ter lis­ten­ing to sub­mis­sions from the TTPS and Har­ford on Fri­day, Se­nior Mag­is­trate Re­han­na Ho­sein found that the in­for­ma­tion re­layed by the po­lice “was suf­fi­cient and rel­e­vant” and she re­voked the li­cences grant­ed on No­vem­ber 7.

Af­ter per­mis­sion was grant­ed to Har­ford to sell al­co­hol at the event, par­ty or­gan­is­ers paid $174,064 on No­vem­ber 8 for po­lice of­fi­cers to pro­vide se­cu­ri­ty at the event which was set to take place from 2 am to 10 pm.

The ex­tra-du­ty per­son­nel in­clud­ed a se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent, two su­per­in­ten­dents, three as­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dents, six in­spec­tors, 14 sergeants, 20 cor­po­rals and 100 con­sta­bles.

The or­gan­is­ers had start­ed prepar­ing the venue for the par­ty, which was ex­pect­ed to at­tract hun­dreds of pa­trons, on Fri­day.

In Beetham Gar­dens yes­ter­day, res­i­dents ex­pressed dis­gust and anger at the can­cel­la­tion. Young men in the com­mu­ni­ty lined Main Street, Beetham, smok­ing and drink­ing as they dis­cussed the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed event.

At the Beetham Gar­dens Recre­ation­al Grounds, em­ploy­ees of the Ricky Raghu­nanan Group of Com­pa­nies were hard at work dis­man­tling the tents and the stage and or­gan­is­ing the re­moval of the scaf­fold­ing and oth­er equip­ment.

They con­firmed they were sent to the site around 7 am yes­ter­day with a di­rec­tive to re­move the tents, stage and equip­ment.

As they dis­man­tled and loaded the equip­ment, an anx­ious work­er said, “We just want to fin­ish our work and get out of here.”

Vil­lafana was charged with be­ing a gang leader and coun­selling a gang in 2019 un­der the An­ti-Gang Act af­ter of­fi­cers from the Crim­i­nal Gang and In­tel­li­gence Unit re­port­ed­ly in­ter­cept­ed tele­phone con­ver­sa­tions be­tween him and two oth­er men.

Asked to com­ment on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher said: “I know we worked very hard to en­sure that li­cence was not grant­ed. We will en­sure no ac­tiv­i­ties take place in the Beetham.”

Oth­er se­nior of­fi­cials said they were brac­ing for the fall-out from the can­cel­la­tion.

Guardian Me­dia was told that sev­er­al per­sons who ar­rived from Ja­maica on Fri­day for the event were de­tained at the air­port and put on flights back to Ja­maica.

This was the sec­ond event to be can­celled by the au­thor­i­ties. On Oc­to­ber 30, or­gan­is­ers were re­fused per­mis­sion to hold a Kman Sixx Con­cert at St Paul Street on No­vem­ber 2.