The knee-jerk reaction of most will be to say that petards are more than a nuisance, some going as far as saying they are the bane of summer.
Loud bangs, shuddering buildings, scampering pests, interrupted rest, headaches and many more unpleasant things do arise as a result of our famous bombi being set off, this is fact.
Also, many see them as a waste of money, with money literally going up in smoke and this is also fact. Feast organisers go round door to door asking for households to donate money to the annual festa… if you do not contribute, the bad looks and the whispers start doing the rounds. Some call that coercion.
What is definite is that the anti petard movement is gaining ground. Groups with hundreds of people are using Facebook as their platform to lobby for them to be banned, or at the very least, regulated.
The first issue that needs to be addressed is the law which regulates noise pollution made specifically by petards. This newspaper last week carried a court report which the courts found to be erroneous. The court then proceeded to quote a section of the law (in Maltese) which it forwarded to be published as a letter. Even after poring over the 100 word passage numerous times, with various eyes, its ambiguity and complexity left no one any wiser as to what is and what is not construed to be noise pollution.
One is not saying that the courts are to blame, far from it. The courts are there to interpret laws and regulations, not draft them.
What is really needed is some common sense, which at times is not so common. Petards are fired up into the sky at various times of the day. They can be let off with increasing frequency in the days running up to the actual feast, but incredulously, can also be let off as soon as statues are taken out of their niches and sometimes 15 days before the feast.
It does not need public consultation and it does not need meetings with stakeholders to establish that petards let off at 8.30am is not something which should be happening in 2009’s Malta. Equally, they should not be let off during the afternoons when people are resting for a night shift, or elderly people are having a nap. That is, quite frankly, anti social behaviour.
We understand that a total ban on petards will never come about. It is part of the festa culture. But we reiterate the call for proper regulation and some common sense. Why is it that it is illegal to play loud music which is a nuisance to others, yet loud petards are not?
The time frame during which they are let off prior to the feasts should be reduced to that weekend alone and only at certain times during the day.
This newspaper feels that if the stakeholders are reasonable, then discussions can be quick and should satisfy parties all round. A compromise can and must be found. Arbitrarily banning petards will not work. Regulating them, and even more importantly, enforcing that regulation is the way forward. Only in doing so can we really achieve social justice.