Inspired fireworks law

PARLIAMENT has, at long last, passed fireworks legislation. That’s heartening, almost miraculous, news. But now the focus must turn to public education and to enforcement.

Fireworks will not be completely banned. They will still be allowed on Old Year’s Night around midnight and on public holidays between 8 pm and 9 pm.

However, their discharge will not be allowed near hospitals, zoos, animal shelters, farms, forest reserves, national parks and airports.

And the revamped permit scheme set out under the new law will potentially usher in a cultural shift.

Permits will be limited to adults only.

Conversely, the law will apply to a widened range of pyrotechnic devices, including crackers, and will for the first time regulate the use of toy fireworks and noise-reducing fireworks.

Most importantly, the legislation introduces a radical shift, empowering ordinary people to act by allowing them to record, on mobile phones, tablets, iPads or other similar smart devices, footage of their neighbours who discharge unauthorised fireworks.

Such footage will become admissible in law enforcement proceedings – serving as a powerful deterrent to anyone thinking of breaking the rules. Cops won’t have to catch you red-handed for the law to bite. That’s an enormous change.

In a rare show of non-partisan lawmaking, MPs and senators this week worked together, unanimously approving all these provisions, with the UNC government even accepting amendments tabled by the PNM.

The law itself, brought as a simple-majority amendment to the Summary Offences Act, had straddled administrations, being the fruit of a Law Reform Commission paper dating to April 2020.

We hope its passage becomes the norm rather than the exception, inspiring similar efforts of collaboration in the 13th Parliament. The public is yearning for more scenes such as that which unfolded in the House of Representatives on December 9 and in the Senate on December 10 – not the cantankerous, unedifying and childish proceedings that have in recent times drawn attention and inspired dismay among the citizenry.

Subject to a proclamation clause, the law will only come into effect once the Cabinet says. The need to engage in a robust public education campaign and to liaise with stakeholders in the fireworks industry should inform any delay. The police should also get ready to bolster compliance.

The agencies that will also have to be notified – under late-hour amendments tabled by the PNM in the House on Tuesday – must also be primed. These include the Environmental Management Authority, the Fire Service and municipal corporations.

Some gaps remain. For instance, the act addresses discharge, not sale. Sensitive sites like police stations and prisons are not included. Down the road, the law should be reviewed.

But for the moment, the legislation’s passage supplies an inspired, hopeful spark.