Mark Beckford, Staff Reporter

Commissioner of Police Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin (right) and Deputy Commissioner of Police Jevene Bent examine the most wanted lists of divisions within Area Five at the monthly Jamaica Constabulary Force press conference at the Police Officers' Club on Hope Road, St Andrew, yesterday. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer

Commissioner of Police Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin has indicated that he will be receiving recommendations by Friday with a view to dealing with the issue of night noise and the enforcement of the Noise Abatement Act.

"The matter of night noise is distressing not to just me personally, but to those people who have to suffer underneath it and we have to put a stop to it," he said yesterday at the Jamaica Constabulary Force's (JCF) monthly press conference held at the Police Officers, Club on Hope Road, St Andrew.

"Clearly, we have to do a lot more than we have been doing now and change the way we have been doing it, and we are going to use means available to us."

Permitting and policing

Admiral Lewin said the recommendations would look at the permitting and the policing of night events.

"In such cases not everyone will be happy with what the outcomes are but I intend by this Friday I will get those recommendations."

The enforcement of the Noise Abatement Act and the presence of legal firearms at places of entertainment have been brought into sharp focus following the shootings at the British Link Up dance held at the La Roose nightclub in St Catherine on March 24.

The party was punctuated with pandemonium after guns were drawn and 41-year-old Clinton Reid was shot dead during a dispute with men said, in police reports, to be holders of licensed firearms. Six persons were also injured in the shoot-out.

Dances in Jamaica have become a popular pastime, with the presence of several weekly dances, with one for each day of the week.

Under the Noise Abatement Act, it is an offence for a person to sing or play any noisy instrument at any time of the day or night so that the sound can be heard beyond a distance of 100 metres and can be reasonably capable of causing annoyance to persons in the vicinity.

It is also an offence for a person to operate or cause to be operated any loudspeaker, microphone or any other device for the amplification of sound on any private or public place at any time of the night or day so that the sound can be heard beyond a distance of 100 metres and can be reasonably capable of causing annoyance to persons in the vicinity.

mark.beckford@gleanerjm.com