She Can’t Sleep A Night…
Kingston is a fairly happening city, IMHO. There is always some party, dance or night club to go to. Young Jamaicans love to party, like most young people everywhere, and people make a lot of money from the business of keeping them entertained. This is a good thing as I firmly believe that people ought to be able to attend dances, parties and night clubs and to unleash their spirits (like the lady pictured above, ‘giving them a run’. 
At the same time, it can be a bad thing… I also feel that the needs of party goers should not take precedence over those of people who just want to sleep!
I read where this poor lady can’t get to sleep at night because of the noise coming from the Priscillas and Weekendz Nite Clubs in the nights. I live fairly near to those clubs, but not near enough to really be affected by the noise they create, but I know that they do kick up an awful lot of noise just from driving by their establishments in the night.
Actually, loud music does not really hurt me, as I have the ability to sleep through that kind of noise, but I fully understand what she is going through!
The last set of apartments we lived in were right next door to a garage. The owner of the garage is pretty big on the local racing scene, and everytime a race meet was coming up at Dover, they would work around the clock preparing their racing cars for the meet. I believe they raced Mazda RX7’s and let me tell you, the howl of a rotary engine, accompanied by the explosions of the engines backfiring and the sound of tools banging away in the middle of the night is the one type of noise that I’ve encountered that keeps me from sleeping! This happened to Natty and I several times as we were there for about five years and they have several race meets a year. I know how the poor lady feels, trust me!
According to her, our laws as currently written provide for people to keep the sound systems going until 4:00AM as long as they turn it down at 2:00AM, and I know that I have been at sessions where the Babylon dem (Police) pass through and the music is turned down, but there are many others where the Babylon dem simply get a little money to help defray the ever spiralling costs of their children’s education and the noise continues unabated. Now thats good for the Babylon’s kids, and if you’re a person at the party, you’re good to go, but the people who live nearby are suffering!
I think that it is time for laws to be passed (and/or adhered to, if they have already been passed) re proper zoning of the city. There really should be a zone where parties and night clubs can be set up and held, and this should not be in a residential zone, so that those who aren’t in attendance can get some sleep. Of course, thats going to be difficult to set up, because the city simply was not built with any kind of zoning in mind, it seems… Residences are interspersed with commercial buildings everywhere you look!
Yeah, I know… It really sounds like I’m getting old, nuh true? (doesn’t it?)
(Image lifted shamelessly from Party Inc., where you can go to look at pictures of people having fun at various sessions in J-A. *)
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I saw the letter myself. I sympathize with the lady. You say you can sleep through that kind of noise….I definitely cannot sleep in an environment with noise. Having lived on this road for about 35 years I have become to peace and quiet at night, noise can’t work.
They do need to do something about it. Poor woman probably can’t function at work.
I value my peace and quiet. While I sleep hard, that kind of noise would keep me from getting to sleep, and when I don’t get enough sleep, NO ONE is happy. I’d have to move, or find a way to close them down.
You have a point MB but be careful, sometimes the very thing that you ask for tun round bite yu! (turns aaround and bites you.) Sometimes the powers that be take it too far in the opposite direction
Just spent another night without sleep in Red Hills, courtesy of Deltone, the scourge of our area. It was total pandemonium last night, until well after 4 am, with screaming deejays (including threats and sneers at those people who dare to call the police), outrageous sound effects, woofers turned up so high that it felt like a minor earthquake, music getting louder and louder as we got closer to the morning hours etc. But I guess we were lucky, last week they continued until six! The Red Hills Police has been totally ineffective - actually admitted last night that the crowd was too rowdy for them to turn the music down. This is not funny anymore! These people are killing the music and callously depriving others (the majority?) of their well-earned night rest, often several nights per week, just about everywhere in Jamaica. This can’t be good for this country. What can be done to reach a workable comrpomise? Does music have to be this loud and obnoxious to be enjoyed? Sound systems are big business these days. Do these people pay taxes? I surely do!