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Lee Sing’s latest edict: No DJs for J’Ouvert on the Avenue
Published:
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Pan Trinbago general secretary Richard Forteau, centre, speaks at a news conference at the Port-of-Spain City Hall on Knox Street yesterday. With him are Port-of-Spain mayor Louis Lee Sing, left, and deputy mayor Keron Valentine. Photo: BRIAN NG FATT
Another restriction has been placed on revellers for this year’s J’Ouvert celebrations as bands with DJs and music trucks will not be allowed on Ariapita Avenue. Additionally for the five hours that encompasses J’Ouvert morning, the avenue would be renamed the Birdie Mannette Pan Avenue. Birdie Manette was a pan pioneer from Woodbrook who played during the early days of pan with Invaders. This is to accommodate a steel band parade and ‘bomb’ competition which will take place on the avenue and be judged at Adam Smith Square in Woodbrook. This was revealed by Port-of-Spain mayor Louis Lee Sing during a news conference yesterday at City Hall, Port-of-Spain. Lee Sing had already announced in a previous news conference that J’Ouvert masqueraders would not be allowed to parade through St Clair. Lee Sing told media at a news conference yesterday that the T&T Police service had advised that St Clair was off limits. “There is now a zero tolerance approach to defacing of property,” Lee Sing said.
Lee Sing said the decision to transform Ariapita Avenue to pan avenue was to give the national instrument a pride of place in the Carnival festival. He said steelbands who might not have made it to Panorama could organise their troops and participate in the competition. “This year we have carved out a space for Carnival as never before,” said Lee Sing. Deputy mayor, Keron Valentine, who is chairman of the Downtown Carnival Committee, announced that the ‘bomb’ competition held on Adam Smith Square would be one of the biggest in the country, with the first prize for conventional and traditional steelbands at $30,000 and $10,000 respectively. Valentine also advised mas bands that there was no fee required for registration for Downtown Carnival. He believed registration had been slow because many bandleaders thought there would be a registration fee, as with the National Carnival Bandleaders Association. He said, however, that this was not so.
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