It is 3.50 am in Tobago. Someone is having a party. A man shouts into a microphone, voice reverberating throughout the environs as he strives to be heard over the dull boom-boom-boom of soca, dub, dancehall or whatever genre of music is pounding like a pre-dawn pile driver.

It clearly doesn’t matter that the area is primarily residential. So what if people are sleeping? It is Thursday, a typical workday; time for them to wake up – that is, if those in closer proximity to the high-decibel festivities ever got to sleep at all.

Suddenly I hear the all too familiar, loud, dreaded pop-pop-pop-pop of fireworks.

I recall a sales rep at a FireOne Fireworks stall in Scarborough telling me late one December, about four years ago, that "Tobago people are more into simple, old-time things like bussing bamboo and are not so interested in fireworks yet."

I guess the "yet" has come.

I turn my attention to the preferred early-morning sounds of frogs, crickets and roosters – realising, a short while later, that they are all I am hearing now. The music and shouting have stopped.

Then, just as abruptly: “Boom!” More fireworks. About 20 rapid explosions end the party just after 4 am.

Noise – a signature of “we culture”; the louder the better, regardless of time or place.

Recently FireOne Fireworks issued a press announcement notifying the public that it proposes to “apply to the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) for a variation in accordance with the Noise Pollution Control Rules” for discharging fireworks for 20 minutes (from 8 pm) on August 31, at Queen’s Park Savannah, Arima Velodrome and San Fernando Hill.

Although the public was “invited to submit comments within five working days of the publication of this Notice to the EMA,” no e-mail address was given – a clever move, considering that the average lazy or too-busy citizen would not bother to look for the address.

The EMA subsequently issued a public “Update on Noise Variation Permits for Fireworks,” saying it had recommended a ban on traditional noise-producing fireworks, that approvals required for discharging fireworks do not fall within its remit, and that “effective immediately” it is no longer accepting noise variation applications for firework displays.

Several citizens, myself included, subsequently re-addressed/re-sent our e-mails of concern (re the firework displays) to the "Honourable Minister of National Security."

In my letter to Minister Hinds I stated that I felt none of the proposed FireOne events should be allowed – and gave supporting reasons.

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At the end of the letter I suggested that in the unfortunate event that the 20-minute displays are permitted, there must be full-page ads from FireOne Fireworks (in each of the three main daily newspapers), stating the start and finish times and locations, along with advice to members of the public on how to best secure their animals.

I added that while the securing of owned animals is the responsibility of th