Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain - The Spanish Canary Island of
Tenerife was in uproar Friday over a court decision banning nightly
street celebrations in the capital Santa Cruz during its world-famous
carnival.
A Tenerife judge accepted the complaint of a group of residents
who said the carnival, which is scheduled to begin on February 16,
was too noisy.
Canaries regional prime minister Adan Martin said citizens would
not 'resign' to the partial cancellation of a 'celebration of an
enormous magnitude.'
Officials calculated that toning down the carnival could cost
Santa Cruz 5 million euros (6.4 million dollars) and cause
'incalculable' damage to tourism.
The carnival is 'a celebration more than 200 years old, which has
survived famine, epidemics and the Civil War,' Santa Cruz mayor
Miguel Zerolo was quoted by press reports as saying.
Zerolo called for calm after protesters gathered outside the city
hall on Thursday. He said some solution needed to be found to the
court injunction prohibiting the celebrations as a cautionary
measure. The court was to take a definitive decision on Monday.
The Spanish government sided with the Santa Cruz authorities. The
law against noise allowed for exceptions for cultural reasons, the
Environment Ministry said.
About 15 local residents lodged a complaint against musical groups
parading through the streets during carnival, saying the noise
violated their constitutional right to domestic privacy.
They requested that the noise should not surpass 55 decibels in
residential areas after 10 p.m. Normally during carnival, the streets
erupt into an extravaganza of music and dancing that surpasses 115
decibels.
A court rejected the complaint last year, saying it contravened
the interest of hundreds of thousands of residents and tourists, but
the complaint won on appeal.
The 'unprecedented' new ruling 'irreparably mutilates European
carnival,' Zerolo said, adding that it attacked 'the heart, feelings
and history of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.'
'We have survived much worse times than this, and it is impossible
for anyone to stop so many groups,' said Antonio Ramirez of one of
the dozens of musical groups organized by neighbourhood associations
which claim the streets of Santa Cruz in carnival time.
However, the Peacram, a national platform of anti-noise
associations, hailed the court injunction as an important precedent.
'The city needs to be residential, not a circus,' Peacram president
Ignacio Saenz said.
The Canaries Superior Court said the injunction would not concern
carnival activities during day, nor key events such as the opening
parade and the election of a carnival queen.
Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar said the judicial
decision needed to be respected, although it made him feel
'bewildered.'
Carnival is celebrated all over Spain, but none is as famous as
that of Tenerife, which is billed as second only to Rio de Janeiro
itself.
As a stopover for ships travelling to and from the Americas for
centuries, the Canaries absorbed Creole influences which mark their
dazzling costume parades, Latin dancers and beauty pageants.
The carnival also features original events such as the so-called
burial of the sardine, in which a huge sardine effigy is carried
through the streets, followed by people pretending to mourn the death
of the sardine, but actually mourning the end of carnival time.
Dictator Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975,
outlawed carnival, fearing its subversive potential. In some places
including Tenerife, however, residents defied the ban, continuing to
stage carnival celebrations under a different name.
This year's Tenerife carnival lasts from February 16 to 25.
Court cases against noise have proliferated in Spain, a country
with one of the world's highest noise levels from late-night bars and
discotheques, airports and the like.
Recently, the mayor of the eastern town of Vila-real had to resign
after being sentenced to one-and-a-half years in prison for not
getting a loud factory under control.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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