No glass bottles for Carnival in POS

Leave glass bottles at home or in the trunk of your car: Lee Sing

The mayor of Port of Spain is warning that people who carry drinks in glass bottles during the Carnival celebrations would face a fine of $1,000 and risk being thrown in jail for three months.

Louis Lee Sing said he has held discussions with key stakeholders in the glass bottle beverage industry and they have decided that they will not sell beverages in glass containers in Port of Spain on both Carnival days. 

"What we are doing is a worldwide approach to crowd control," Lee Sing told the Express newspaper.

"Where you have large crowds gathered, you never sell drinks in glass bottles. When you go to international football games, and what have you, you could drink as much as you want but you are getting it in a plastic cup," he added.

Lee Sing said individuals entering the city for Carnival should treat it as a big cooler fete and refrain from bringing any glass bottles.

"If the person comes into the city with a trunk-full of drinks and they keep it in their trunk we have no quarrel with that. But if they open the trunk and distribute the bottles in a band, that is what we have a problem with because those very bottles could end up being instruments of death and destruction and injury.

"A lot of people use the Savannah as a picnic ground during the Carnival. They come with their drinks in their trunk. If they have glass bottles in their trunk and they open it in their trunk and pour the drink into a plastic cup and distribute it to a friend in a passing band, I have absolutely no problem with that. But you cannot serve drinks on the road in glass bottles."

Lee Sing it was a broken bottle which was used during the only killing during last year's carnival.