Bang goes your sleep...

The cartoon on this page and two letters, in this paper last week, reminded me that I had not mentioned noise nuisance for a couple of weeks.

In case you did not see the letters, I shall give you the gist. An ailing 85-year-old lady in Paola was chased out of her house until 2.30 a.m. by fireworks, set up literally on her doorstep.

When she saw the "monstrous fireworks" being erected, she phoned the local mayor to complain that he had granted permission to the De Paule Band Club to erect them "a few feet away from the front of my home".

She asked him to stop them. Not only did he not do that, "three more huge pieces were further erected".

The fireworks started at midnight. The lady in question quite rightly was "very disappointed" by the mayor's attitude. "Instead of protecting his senior citizens, (he) caused me a lot of stress and pain during the feast of Christ the King."

This letter raises various questions: Is it civilised to have fireworks let off at midnight? Is it civilised to have them erected on residents' doorsteps? And whose interests exactly are the local councils protecting?

The second letter headed "Petards morning, noon and night" came from a fellow Sliema resident. Believe me, I know what he was writing about.

He was woken on the Friday at 8 a.m. "by the bombs otherwise known as petards, which also set off a string of car alarms right under my window".

The letter-writer is a pilot whose work necessitates undisturbed rest. That is why airline pilots are only allowed to fly a certain number of hours. He was flying that night and he would also have liked to be able to sleep when he arrived from a long night's shift on the next day.

Needless to say, the afternoon sessions ruled out any siesta. He could not even attempt a nap in the early evening as he never knows whether there will be another 'raid' (my word) at 7 p.m. or 9.30 p.m. The timings are so arbitrary.

Anyway, he phoned St Julian's council to try to get some specifics on "the times that these pyrotechnicians had permission to fire these nuisance bombs, so that, at least, I could plan my rest according to the gross disturbance".

The council told him he should phone the police. Now I am sure many people would like to know what exactly local councils are here for. Surely they should know the times when citizens are forced to put up with excessive noise?

And how come the Paola councils give out permits but the St Julian's council does not know what is going on? Maybe the minister responsible for local councils can enlighten us!

It gets better. When the letter-writer duly phoned the police, this is what happened: A female sergeant answered the phone and had to check. Her superintendent was overheard telling her to reply, "they cannot tell me as I was a private citizen". The 'super' also refused to talk to the complainant, but told the sergeant to say that he would tell him exactly the same words.

However, the gentleman in question wanted to know "why it was none of my business". Continuing the "relayed conversation" he was "dumbfounded to be told: 'Don't you know that the law against public disturbance does not apply for the village festa week... you have to have patience'."

Not surprisingly, the pilot was not impressed by this statement and added that patience has to be extended to four different Sliema feasts, two at St Julian's, Gzira and San Gwann "which severely disrupt my life as well as that of many others... Like me there are thousands of other shift workers and fellow citizens alike who do not appreciate being disturbed...".

We need to have patience indeed. Was this man supposed to phone his airline and cancel the flight because he would not have got the stipulated rest?

How would the airline react? Would they sack him, at worst, or would the refusal to fly be kept as a black mark on the company's records, at best?

Anyway I doubt that the relayed superintendent's statement is correct. Is it possible that festas are above the law?

Yet, I suppose that if they can bring airports to a halt and disrupt pilots they are. Incidentally, the writer then repeats, almost exactly, sentiments expressed in my columns at the time and the same wording of the petition "We believe this exaggerated (bombi) noise pollution, which is detrimental to everyone but especially the sick, elderly and the dying should be curbed", presented to the House of Representatives in September 2001.

It would be wrong to say that nothing happened since. Let me fill you in. On December 12, 2001, Mario Galea, the Nationalist Whip, wrote to me thanking me for the initiative taken and for the copies of the signed petition.

He said that he would honour the word he gave me at the presentation in September and would ensure that the PN parliamentary group discusses the petition.

"As a government there is no doubt that we are against exaggeration and the breaking of rules and regulations (sic).

"Every exaggeration goes against the true value of our feasts and harms this tradition.

"PN-led governments had already taken concrete steps to bring order and control, and lessen danger and inconvenience.

"In 1993 Minister Louis Galea had not only stiffened the regulations, but also wholly enforced the prohibition of sfafar and other fireworks during the band marches."

St Julian's 'super', please note that it seems the festi are also answerable to the law.

The Whip's letter continued: "Meetings have been held between the pyrotechnics association and archpriests and parish priests for there to be more control and moderation.

"There is no doubt that more needs to be done and it would be a good idea to meet after the Christmas break to discuss the matter further."

And meet we did in February 2002. It was a positive meeting and Mr Galea told me he would try to organise a meeting with the police commissioner and Minister Tonio Borg.

That meeting never materialised and my educated hunch is that either the police commissioner or the minister, or both, discouraged the idea.

Mr Galea did write to me four days later. He made no reference at all to the meeting he had proposed, but said that following our meeting he did put forward a parliamentary question to Minister Tonio Borg regarding whether there are any statistics of children injured by fireworks.

He also included the statistics provided by the minister.

Now it seemed to me that there are many related issues which could have been put forward as a parliamentary question regarding the petition. Child accidents were one of the many issues discussed at the meeting.

Anyway, that is where the matter rested. Attempts to get back to Mr Galea failed, and I finally gave up trying to contact him. Shame on me, I know, but I never pretended to be Superwoman. Anyway, my gut feeling was that it was not him who was stonewalling.

In the meantime people still write to me, and the paper, urging that something be done about this annual problem.

I recently got a long letter from Gozo. The writer told me not to mention his name "to protect my family". But he did supply all the necessary details, which I confirmed.

For the same reason I am not mentioning the particular festa.

The writer complained that because the wind was blowing in his home's direction, their house was "bombarded with unexploded bombs, burning plastic and paper, and smoke.

"Above all the bombs rattled our house. Our six children were scared to death and my wife is due to give birth soon."

The police superintendent asked the complainant in the presence of the pyrotechnicians whether he wanted them to move the wall from where the fireworks were hoisted to "the safety limit" for their next session.

"I felt that it was unprofessional to put the responsibility of this illegality on to me," the writer said.

They were therefore allowed to carry on with their illegal hoisting. They were even hoisting 60 m from a public road, he said.

I would say it is more than unprofessional. But it is obviously up to the police commissioner and the minister to pass judgment. I could not possibly comment!

To sum up, recently Dr Michael Asciak, the Nationalist MP, took up the cudgels of the dreaded petards. I was delighted to see that an MP who is also a doctor was following up the issue.

On July 26 Dr Asciak asked a parliamentary question to Minister Tonio Borg; "What had happened after the presentation of a petition regarding the excessive frequency and noise from feast bombi by journalist Pamela Hansen?"

"The police have already taken steps to stop important arterial roads being closed for the hoisting of fireworks. The police take action on complaints they receive from time to time." This is what the minister, who is also the deputy PM, replied.

There was no mention of road closures in the petition. The call was for the bombi to be curbed to protect the welfare of the elderly, sick, the dying, children, animals and the community as a whole because of the psychological damage and other harassment being inflicted on them by the excessive frequency and noise pollution was what the petition was all about.

The minister did not respond to that. As for the police taking action "from time to time", whom is the minister kidding?