The Cit­i­zens Against Noise Pol­lu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CANPTT) is call­ing for stronger en­force­ment and clear le­gal pro­tec­tions for res­i­dents un­der the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025, oth­er­wise called the Fire­works Reg­u­la­tion Bill, warn­ing that the pro­posed law will fail with­out firm ac­tion on the ground.

The bill was lat­er passed in the Low­er House of Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

In a state­ment, CANPTT ac­knowl­edged the bill as a step for­ward, say­ing it marks the first time ex­plo­sive py­rotech­nics are be­ing ad­dressed as a pub­lic health and na­tion­al safe­ty is­sue. How­ev­er, the group said the leg­is­la­tion re­mains in­com­plete and in­suf­fi­cient to pro­tect cit­i­zens.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties face the great­est harm from fire­works, with ex­plo­sions oc­cur­ring over homes and neigh­bour­hoods, af­fect­ing in­fants, vul­ner­a­ble adults, neu­ro­di­ver­gent chil­dren and trau­ma sur­vivors. CANPTT said med­ical pro­fes­sion­als have linked ex­plo­sive fire­works to in­fant car­diac dis­tress and res­pi­ra­to­ry in­sta­bil­i­ty, adding that these are clin­i­cal ob­ser­va­tions, not per­cep­tions.

De­spite this, CANPTT said the bill does not clear­ly de­fine res­i­den­tial ar­eas as pro­tect­ed spaces. “If the home is un­pro­tect­ed, then the cit­i­zen is un­pro­tect­ed,” the group said.

CANPTT iden­ti­fied en­force­ment as the most se­ri­ous weak­ness, not­ing that ex­ist­ing noise laws are rarely en­forced and il­le­gal ex­plo­sives re­main open­ly sold. It is seek­ing clar­i­ty on which agency will re­spond to breach­es, how re­ports will be han­dled, re­sponse times, avail­able re­sources, es­ca­la­tion for re­peat of­fend­ers, con­fis­ca­tion pow­ers and whether penal­ties will be im­me­di­ate. It al­so called for a pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign be­fore en­force­ment be­gins.