SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

For an­i­mal lovers, the el­der­ly and in­firm, 2018 will be re­mem­bered as the year Gov­ern­ment fi­nal­ly buck­led un­der pub­lic pres­sure and an­nounced a ban on scratch bombs.

Scratch bombs have long been the top­ic of heat­ed de­bate as many cit­i­zens ad­vo­cate against their sale and use, cit­ing the mul­ti­ple in­ci­dents of loss of limb and prop­er­ty caused by the bombs.

De­scrib­ing it as a “na­tion­al nui­sance”, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young warned last month that any­one caught with scratch bombs or caught det­o­nat­ing them will face the heavy hand of the law.

On Fri­day, Young signed the Ex­plo­sives (Pro­hi­bi­tion of Scratch Bombs) Or­der 2018, in keep­ing with Sec­tion 37 of the Ex­plo­sives Act, Chap­ter 16:02. The Or­der pro­hibits any­one from man­u­fac­tur­ing, im­port­ing, keep­ing, con­vey­ing or sell­ing scratch bombs. Any­one is found breach­ing the Or­der may be li­able up­on con­vic­tion to a $20,000 fine or ten years im­pris­on­ment.

While many would have liked the ban to in­clude all fire­works, oth­ers are hope­ful that this ban may lead to stricter reg­u­la­tions of the fire­works in­dus­try. The Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of T&T (ZSTT) is one such body.

In the days fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment of the ban, the ZSTT sent out a press re­lease prais­ing gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion.

“As a next step, the ZSTT would like con­sid­er­a­tion to be giv­en on re­strict­ing the use of fire­works in res­i­den­tial and sen­si­tive ar­eas so as to min­imise the harm­ful ef­fects on peo­ple and an­i­mals. It is well es­tab­lished that noise from fire­works can cause dis­tress, and an­i­mals have been known to in­ju­re them­selves,” the re­lease said.

How­ev­er, Sa­ree­ta Bridge­lal, an an­ti-fire­works ad­vo­cate who start­ed a pe­ti­tion af­ter Di­vali call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to act, is scep­ti­cal and be­lieves the ban might just be a pub­lic re­la­tions stunt.

She said there are still bombs that are le­gal that have the same ef­fect on the el­der­ly and an­i­mals.

“Al­though scratch bombs are il­le­gal now, the fact re­mains that they are still be­ing sold and there are many oth­er bombs that have the same ef­fect. I don’t think any­thing of sub­stance was done to make a dif­fer­ence for this is­sue,” she said.

Bridge­lal said she is ea­ger to see how the po­lice will en­force the new or­der as she said what­ev­er weight it has, will rest on the shoul­ders of po­lice of­fi­cers.

“The po­lice have to be a much bet­ter job in mon­i­tor­ing who are sell­ing these items and who are us­ing them, the Com­mis­sion­er did say these things are il­le­gal and he did warn the pub­lic but whether his of­fi­cers will car­ry through with their du­ty is left to be seen,” she said.

How­ev­er, she is claim­ing the ban as a small but sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry in a big­ger bat­tle as many cit­i­zens are now think­ing twice be­fore buy­ing and us­ing fire­works.

“I think there was a cul­ture shift, peo­ple are more con­scious in what they are do­ing and the ef­fect it has on those who can­not de­fend them­selves, I be­lieve they are look­ing more close­ly at what they spend their mon­ey on and think­ing twice about watch­ing it go up in smoke.”