Fireworks menace in Blue Range

THE EDITOR: It was a night of horror for my family and I in Blue Range, Diego Martin. Fireworks raged for at least 20 minutes constantly from 12 am and intermittently for hours thereafter. The tranquillisers we gave our dog did not effectively help to keep him calm and with the ensuing bombardment he became as jittery as his owners.

My neighbours to the back of me (a local artist and her husband contractor) had "a time," as the young people would say, as they released volley after volley from their rooftop terrace into the midnight sky, with debris raining down on our roof.

I called out to them in the strongest language possible to stop and even employed an air horn to draw to their attention my disgust. This only prompted them to up the tempo. I was thankful that I was not a gun owner that night, for the rage I felt was murderous.

This is the lot of decent citizenry in TT, unprotected by the State in the face of the unregulated and indiscriminate use of fireworks. The existing laws, although insufficient, are broken in a widespread fashion by both the rich and the poor, and all in-between, with no consideration for the vulnerable – humans and animals alike. Man's inhumanity to man, borne out of a desire for pleasure at any cost, was indeed on full display.

When will this end? With both major parties wilfully impotent and more aligned with the interests of fireworks importers and users, it does not seem anytime soon. We are truly a barbaric state that allows such anguish to be meted out to thousands.

While I don't wish an eternity in hell on anyone, I do wish that my neighbours, other fireworks users, the politicians on both sides who allow this by refusing to pass progressive legislation and the major fireworks importers be cast into purgatory for a million years, or at the least 999,999 years. Where earthly jurisprudence is never guaranteed, divine justice is always assured.

MICHAEL JATTAN

Diego Martin