The Editor, Sir:

I seek your assistance in highlighting a very serious breach of our Noise Abatement Act in the form of the regular night noise at the street dances.

These community dances are dubbed: Crazy Monday, Passa Passa, Weddy Wednesday, Bembe and Dutty Fridayz, etc.; and since December 2007, I've noticed in a community on the outskirts of Papine a Saturday phenomenon.

The Noise Abatement Act expressly states, "Subject to Subsection (2) and Section 5, no person shall, on any private premises or in any public place at any time of day or night:

(a) sing, or sound or play upon any musical or noisy instrument; or

(b) operate, or permit or cause to be operated, any loudspeaker, microphone or any other device for the amplification of sound in such a manner that the sound is audible beyond a distance of one hundred metres from the source of such sound and is reasonably capable of causing annoyance to persons in the vicinity so that where during the period specified in subsection (4), such sound is audible beyond that distance in the vicinity of any dwelling house, hospital, nursing home, infirmary, hotel or guest house, such sound shall be presumed to cause annoyance to persons in that vicinity".

Letters written to the authorities have had no effect, nor has police action. Do you wonder why crime continues to permeate and rob us of the status we once enjoyed? And, we wonder why decent Jamaicans are seeking citizenship elsewhere! How do we correct this?

I am, etc.,

Concerned Citizen