Noise nuisance in our society

Dec 28, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,

Our society has become a place of constant noise in various parts of our country, but the police do nothing about it. I wonder if a bill was past in parliament about noise nuisance, then why is it these laws are not enforced. On Christmas day I visited some of my relatives at Enterprise. When I arrived there I heard some very lewd and loud music that vibrated the entire community.

I spoke to my relatives about the music and they told me that it was an overseas Guyanese who owns a restaurant, who brought in those boxes since Christmas Eve Day and was playing the music night and day.

As I was talking to my relatives I can barely hear my own voice I had to speak as if I was deaf. My relatives couldn’t answer phone calls from well wishers at home and abroad because they are unable to hear the speaker’s voice on their phones.

When I asked them if the police are patrolling in the area they said yes but do nothing, though people in the community reported the restaurant owner to the police. I find it very ridiculous that the police themselves have violated the law by not stopping the loud music they were hearing in that community. In a country like Suriname that restaurant owner would have been arrested and put into prison and his shop licence would have been revoked.

Residents in the community told me the man has ‘’a lot of lines’’ and from what I have seen, lawlessness have invaded our county left, right and centre.

I walked down the street to take a good view of the restaurant. I note with interest a very big movie screen in front of the restaurant’s owner yard where he shows movies, even pornography movies, whenever he wants.

It seems to me that people can break the law and get away with it as long as they have money and can pay a bribe to the police and some corrupt officials in high offices.

How can students study when a miscreant living in their community is disturbing their peace? How can old people who are sick get their rest? How can citizens spend a decent Christmas with friends and family when they cannot hear their own voices in their own homes?

It seems as if these so called laws that are passed are just another piece of legislation on paper. Lots of these bar and restaurant owners and night clubs owners are destroying the moral fabric of our society by noise nuisance, and are seeing more and more bars, pools shops, gambling houses, whore houses and dope houses rising on every street corner everyday like a cancer in our society.

We should ask ourselves some very serious questions. What have we achieved after 42 years of independence? Where are we heading morally, spiritually and intellectually?

Noise nuisance have infiltrated our society from every corner we have now become a reggae and dance hall society. We have produced dunces and more street peddlers and dope pushers. Our Ministers in Governments should come out of their offices and visit more communities to observe what is really happening in our communities.

Rev. Gideon Cecil