SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A mag­is­trate has grant­ed a dance­hall li­cence to a restau­rant and bar own­er with sev­er­al re­stric­tions, fol­low­ing sev­er­al com­plaints from near­by res­i­dents.

Ranch Bar B Que & Grill in Phillip­ine was told not to use or set off fire­works as part of the terms and con­di­tions im­posed by Mag­is­trate Ali­cia Chankar as she ap­proved the li­cense to Dr Stephen Ram­roop.

Ram­roop once served as the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment.

Sev­er­al res­i­dents com­plained about the noise lev­el from the venue, park­ing is­sues, and peo­ple uri­nat­ing on walls and throw­ing garbage on­to their premis­es.

Af­ter me­di­a­tion ear­li­er this year with all par­ties failed, the mat­ter went to tri­al.

At­tor­ney Cley­on Seedan pros­e­cut­ed the mat­ter while the de­fence at­tor­neys were Varun Gopaul-Go­sine and Kezia Fe­lix. The Dis­trict Court Judge at the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trate's Court or­dered that events at the venue are to be held on Fri­days, Sat­ur­days and Pub­lic Hol­i­days to end at 10 pm and no event is to be held on a re­li­gious hol­i­day. She al­so or­dered that the five res­i­dents who were part of the le­gal mat­ter be giv­en writ­ten no­tice sev­en days be­fore an event is held.

The Dis­trict Court Judge al­so said all karaoke events are to be held in a sound­proofed en­closed area and at no time is to be held on the open-air deck. She fur­ther or­dered that the pro­posed li­censee is to have clear, leg­i­ble signs dis­played promi­nent­ly re­lat­ed to garbage dis­pos­al, park­ing, loi­ter­ing and uri­nat­ing. She al­so or­dered that a pri­va­cy wall be erect­ed forth­with or at least some form of opaque fenc­ing so as not to im­pose on res­i­dents' peace­ful en­joy­ment of space.