The Royal Barbados Police Force is taking a no-nonsense stance this Crop Over season on noise pollution. That is, if they have to come and warn you about music levels and you half-heartedly do as you’re told, you run the risk of having your event shut down.
Acting Assistant Commissioner of
Police Erwin Boyce.
“One of the complaints that keep coming to us,” Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police Erwin Boyce told Bajan Vibes “is we respond [to a particular event and] we realize that the noise level is high and we need to turn it down”.
“Yeah, the deejay would turn it down, and then as soon as we get back to the station, it [the music] is back up.
“I think one of the most disturbing things is to hear a deejay’s voice over the music, talking and using a lot of expletives and a lot of things that the average person would not want to hear or be exposed to,” he said.
The senior lawman further warned that if a promoter or deejay turned up the music after being advised to lower it, and lawmen return to find it back up, it will end in one result –– having the event shut down.
But it doesn’t end there. Boyce spoke out about instances where music permits are issued and time limits are exceeded.
“If we give you permission and we say to you that you have a permit until 1 a.m., we would expect that your cooling down session would be between 12:30 a.m. and 1 a.m. The one o’clock is the cut off period. The 12:30 –– you can decide how you want to go out,” he said, noting that on a bigger scale events like Cohobblopot had often proven to be a headache, in this regard.
“It always poses a challenge because we give time and then, for some reason, the last act tends to think that they can go as long as they like. So we have to say ‘cut off’ and usually there is compliance.”
Boyce further told Bajan Vibes that, going forward, police will not be issuing any form of permits for amplified music beyond 3 a.m.