The Po­lice Ser­vice is cau­tion­ing the pop­u­la­tion that there are laws in place to re­strict the unau­tho­rized sale and mis­use of fire­works.

The warn­ing comes ahead of the In­de­pen­dence Day hol­i­day, which is usu­al­ly cel­e­brat­ed by dis­charg­ing py­rotech­nic de­vices.

Ac­cord­ing to In­spec­tor Ashraf Ali, while the penal­ty may not be se­vere, it should not en­cour­age peo­ple to break the laws re­gard­ing the use of fire­works.

“When you look at the ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion of elec­tri­cal tow­ers to the street and the way our hous­ing de­vel­op­ments are made and laid out, al­most every 60 feet from a street, the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion who sets off fire­works is com­mit­ting an of­fence,” he ex­plained.

The Po­lice Ser­vice and ac­tivist groups al­so are re­mind­ing the pub­lic to be mind­ful of the detri­men­tal ef­fects which the noise from fire­works can have on sen­si­tive groups in com­mu­ni­ties, such as new-born ba­bies, the el­der­ly and an­i­mals.

Key gov­ern­ing Reg­u­la­tions

The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Po­lice Ser­vice both ad­vise the pub­lic that the use of fire­works must be ob­served in ac­cor­dance with the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act Chap­ter 11:02 of the Laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Un­der Sec­tion 99 of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act: “Any per­son who throws, casts, sets fire to, or lets off any fire­works with­in any town is li­able to a fine of one thou­sand dol­lars.”

With re­gard to the Sale of Fire­works, the Ex­plo­sives Act Chap­ter 16:02 Sec­tion 10(1) clear­ly states: “No per­son oth­er than a whole­sale or re­tail deal­er shall sell gun­pow­der or of­fer or ex­pose the same for sale.

Sec­tion 10(2) of Chap­ter 16:02 of the Ex­plo­sives Act states: “Any per­son who con­tra­venes the pro­vi­sions of this sec­tion is li­able to a fine of two thou­sand dol­lars.”

The pub­lic is al­so ad­vised to note the Ex­plo­sives (Pro­hi­bi­tion of Scratch Bombs) Or­der 2018, in keep­ing with Sec­tion 37 of the Ex­plo­sives Act Chap­ter 16:02.

The Scratch Bombs Or­der pro­hibits per­sons from man­u­fac­tur­ing, im­port­ing, keep­ing, con­vey­ing or sell­ing a scratch bomb. Per­sons found breach­ing the Or­der may be li­able up­on in­dict­ment, to a fine of $20,000 or ten years’ im­pris­on­ment or for­fei­ture of the items.

The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty sug­gests the fol­low­ing fire­works gen­er­al safe­ty tips, to help pre­vent ac­ci­dents and in­jury:

■   The best way to en­joy fire­works is to vis­it pub­lic fire­works dis­plays put on by pro­fes­sion­als who know how to safe­ly han­dle fire­works.

■   If you plan to use fire­works, make sure they are le­gal in your area and seek to ob­tain the nec­es­sary per­mis­sion.

■   Nev­er light fire­works in­doors or near dry grass.

■   Al­ways have a buck­et of wa­ter and/or a fire ex­tin­guish­er near­by. Know how to op­er­ate the fire ex­tin­guish­er prop­er­ly.

■   Stand sev­er­al feet away from lit fire­works. If a de­vice does not go off, do not stand over it to in­ves­ti­gate it. Put it out with wa­ter and dis­pose of it.

■   Al­ways read the di­rec­tions and warn­ing la­bels on fire­works. If a de­vice is not marked with the con­tents, di­rec­tion, and a warn­ing la­bel, do not light it.

■   Su­per­vise chil­dren around fire­works at all times.

■   If pos­si­ble, keep pets in­doors. If you pre­fer to keep your pets out­side, take steps to en­sure their en­clo­sure/ken­nel is com­fort­able and se­cure­ly locked