Con­tro­ver­sy is brew­ing in St James af­ter an ad­ver­tise­ment ap­peared in the news­pa­per yes­ter­day an­nounc­ing the can­cel­la­tion of one of the town’s Car­ni­val sta­ples; the Chil­dren’s Car­ni­val.

The ad­ver­tise­ment read, “The St James Chil­dren’s Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee wish­es to ad­vise all chil­dren’s band lead­ers, DJ, judges, PoS North Leos and spon­sors that the chil­dren’s car­ni­val 2020 has been can­celled.”

The no­tice did not give any de­tails as to why the decades-old event was can­celled.

How­ev­er, one St James Im­prove­ment Com­mit­tee ex­ec­u­tive, who pre­ferred to re­main un­named at this time said in a short tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day that the is­sue was “be­ing ad­dressed.” The ex­ec­u­tive in­di­cat­ed an emer­gency meet­ing was be­ing held to treat with the mat­ter, how­ev­er, was not at lib­er­ty to dis­close when. The no­tice ap­peared to have tak­en the ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber by sur­prise.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters who said it’s the first he was hear­ing of it. He re­frained from com­ment­ing un­til he re­ceived more in­for­ma­tion on the sit­u­a­tion. How­ev­er, he lament­ed that if the event is can­celled, it would im­pact the Car­ni­val land­scape.

“It would af­fect tra­di­tion, and once a tra­di­tion is af­fect­ed then it has an ef­fect,” he said.