COMPLAINTS HAVE BEEN RIFE about music shows across this land jarring people out of the warm cocoon of sleep in the wee morning hours, whether in residential districts like Eden Lodge or entertainment venue-laden areas like St Lawrence Gap and Maxwell.

We’ve also heard of proposed legislation to combat noise in neighbourhoods, where even church leaders have faced accusations that their preaching and music worship sometimes shattered their communities’ peace.

We’ve also heard Prime Minister Freundel Stuart himself calling for some of Barbados’ places of relaxation to remain an oasis amid the proliferation of fetes.

We have heard commuters complain bitterly about the ear-splitting sounds and psychological pain they’ve had to endure while travelling on public service vehicles, their distress compounded by the belligerent attitude of some conductors and drivers.

And we’ve heard Carl Moore’s pleas for a quieter Barbados as he laments the fact that even silent zones adjacent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital are disobeyed with impunity.

And now residents of Lakes Folly in The City seem to be under siege by noise, as a result of people holding illegal dub fetes in the “Gaza”.  

While promoters and bandleaders in our prime national festival Crop Over have been strictly prevented from holding events unless they fulfil certain obligations, including a value added tax certificate and an entertainment licence, in the “Gaza” no one has been prosecuted or even investigated.

Along with the noise, DJs spit out profanities, some patrons “lick” gunshots, others fight, and some residents’ vehicles are vandalized. Have any of the perpetrators been arrested or their guns seized? Is profanity no longer a crime, especially when it disturbs the peace?

Isn’t it worrying to the Royal Barbados Police Force that Lakes Folly residents are living in fear and dare not open their mouths to the offenders or to those “sworn to protect and serve”?

If indeed two former residents, who persistently complained to the police about the illegal activities, lost their homes to mysterious fires, are those fires being properly investigated?

And to hear an official at the Bridgetown Sewage Treatment Plant express alarm that the shop, which is the base for these fetes, could be erected on Government land on a site from which residents were relocated three years ago is shocking.

Fair-minded citizens will wonder how come no action is taken against such behaviour, while a few months ago a mother who entered an empty structure on Barbarees Hill because she and her children were homeless was prosecuted.

The socially contemptuous in the “Gaza” are holding fetes weekend after weekend, destroying the neighbourhood with their noise and violence and then going to the comfort of their respective homes, untouched by any form of law enforcement.

We humbly ask Superintendent Lybron Sobers, who is responsible for overseeing the issuing of licences to play loud music, to investigate and quickly bring a stop to this madness quickly.

We also would pose a related query to the Attorney General: Is there legislation to stop Barbadian districts from being named after war zones in Jordan’s West Bank and other Middle Eastern hot spots? Think of the psychological impact of this!

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