Who rules, residents or establishments?

Residents are unhappy with the change to Valletta’s nightlife hours. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier.

A legal notice has just added nine Valletta streets to entertainment hubs in Buġibba, Qawra and Paceville. They are no longer bound by a general law restricting music outdoors until 11pm: they can now play music outdoors until 1am.

Has the Valletta local council consulted its residents? Or does the political patronage of Valletta establishments take precedence over the sleep and welfare of Valletta residents?

Mark Miceli-Farrugia – Ta’ Xbiex

Dust in Gozo

Apologies if I appear to be banging on about it but the dust resulting from constant stone cutting on Gozo is causing a health hazard about which even the authorities must by now be well aware.

We see it blowing in swirls down the street. 

Everything, from roofs to roads to floor tiles, is deep in layers of gold-coloured stone dust. The wind blows it off the roofs while car tyres stir it off the tarmac. Stationary vehicles that were once red, blue or black are now almost invisibly yellow-grey.

Walking or driving can often involve passing through a dense cloud with low-to-nil visibility.

The grit gets in your eyes, up your nose and in your mouth. Everything you touch produces a cloud of dust. It penetrates fly-screens, gets underneath doors and on windowsills. If not dusted off quickly, it sets, like cement. Worse, and more easily identifiable than COVID, it gets in your lungs. We should all be wearing full-face masks out of doors.

We are ingesting this stuff while pretending as a nation to combat ‘air pollution’.

Apologies, again, for forgetting that this is Malta (or part of it), so nobody cares.

It’s the developers who are creating this nuisance, so nothing will be done because it’s all about filthy lucre. Filthy, for our lungs and our bodies and our properties, being the operative word.

Revel Barker – Għajnsielem

Big donors

Many unbiased persons possessing some brains believe that big business – and, therefore, presumably, big donors – have a noose around the government’s (and, to a lesser extent, the opposition’s) neck to tighten or loosen as required.

Carmel Sciberras – Naxxar