Days af­ter se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials shut down a mil­lion-dol­lar birth­day cel­e­bra­tion at Beetham Gar­dens, au­thor­i­ties have ob­ject­ed to the host­ing of a dance­hall con­cert sched­uled for the up­com­ing week­end on the ba­sis that it pos­es a threat to pub­lic safe­ty. 

Noth­ing de­fin­i­tive was de­cid­ed by the San Fer­nan­do Li­cens­ing Com­mit­tee yes­ter­day, and of­fi­cers are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue out­lin­ing ob­jec­tions when the mat­ter con­tin­ues to­day.

This is an­oth­er in­stal­ment of the No­vem­ber Freeze Con­cert Se­ries sched­uled to be held at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my, Tarou­ba, on No­vem­ber 16. 

Sat­ur­day’s event, which is be­ing host­ed by Clas­sic Kings Pro­mo­tions, is set to fea­ture Ja­maican reg­gae and dance­hall artists such as Phenique, Go­v­ana, Na­jeeri and Chron­ic Law.

ASP Wayne Stan­ley of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) tes­ti­fied be­fore com­mit­tee chair­man Kr­ish­na Jaglal yes­ter­day, dur­ing which he pe­ti­tioned the reg­is­trar to sup­port the ob­jec­tions on the ba­sis that it was not in the in­ter­est of pub­lic safe­ty and as­so­ci­at­ed gang ac­tiv­i­ty was a very re­al pos­si­bil­i­ty.

When the mat­ter is re­called to­day, Jaglal is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue hear­ing from the po­lice, fol­low­ing which he will rule on the ap­pli­ca­tion for an oc­ca­sion­al dance­hall and bar li­cence by Nigel Thomp­son.

This lat­est ob­jec­tion by the au­thor­i­ties fol­lows on the heels of the can­cel­la­tion of last week­end’s mil­lion-dol­lar birth­day bash that was be­ing planned for An­cel Vil­lafana at Beetham Gar­dens, Port-of-Spain.

Vil­lafana, who is bet­ter known by his alias­es Chemist and Prezzy, was sup­posed to have en­joyed a sim­i­lar con­cert ti­tled Fun Stop ahead of his 44th birth­day on No­vem­ber 12.

The No­vem­ber 10 event, for which per­mis­sion had been grant­ed on Oc­to­ber 15, had promised to fea­ture Ja­maican dance­hall artistes Skeng, Pablo YG, Sha­neE, Tom­my Lee Spar­ta and Skil­libeng, along with an ar­ray of lo­cal en­ter­tain­ers.

In that in­stance, the oc­ca­sion­al dance­hall and bar li­cences 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.

Se­nior of­fi­cers filed an ob­jec­tion on No­vem­ber 8 stat­ing that it posed a threat to pub­lic safe­ty and had the po­ten­tial to at­tract height­ened gang ac­tiv­i­ty, fol­low­ing which per­mis­sion was re­scind­ed.

Af­ter lis­ten­ing to sub­mis­sions from the TTPS and Har­ford two days be­fore the event, Se­nior Mag­is­trate Re­han­na Ho­sein agreed the po­lice had pro­vid­ed suf­fi­cient and rel­e­vant ob­jec­tions, leav­ing her no choice but to re­voke the li­cences that had been grant­ed on No­vem­ber 7.

This, even af­ter 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 out­lined for Fun Stop in­clud­ed a se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent, two su­per­in­ten­dents, three as­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dents, six in­spec­tors, 14 sergeants, 20 cor­po­rals and 100 con­sta­bles.

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.

He was freed of charges in De­cem­ber 2019 af­ter Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by Ear­le-Cad­dle ruled the pros­e­cu­tion’s case had no mer­it.

His par­ty was the sec­ond such event to be can­celled in as many weeks as of­fi­cers had voiced sim­i­lar ob­jec­tions to the host­ing of a birth­day par­ty for Trini­bad artist Kman Sixx.

The event, which was to take place at St Paul Street, Port-of-Spain, on No­vem­ber 2, had to be called off af­ter the po­lice ad­vised that no per­mis­sion had been sought by the or­gan­is­ers to host such.

Kman Sixx, whose re­al name is Kashif Sankar, was charged in Feb­ru­ary with of­fences un­der the An­ti-Gang Act 4 of 2021—name­ly be­ing a gang mem­ber con­trary to Sec­tion 5 (1)(b) of the act and pro­fess­ing to be­ing a gang mem­ber con­trary to Sec­tion 5(1)(d) of the act. He is cur­rent­ly on $40,000 bail.

Sankar was al­so banned from per­form­ing in St Kitts be­cause au­thor­i­ties there felt he posed a se­cu­ri­ty threat.

At­tempts were made to kill Sankar back in De­cem­ber 2023, as the ve­hi­cle he was in was rid­dled with bul­lets by gun­men as he head­ed home af­ter land­ing at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

The ear­ly af­ter­noon shoot­ing along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way, St Au­gus­tine, left four peo­ple dead, in­clud­ing a woman who had been peer­ing out her win­dow at the time of the in­ci­dent.