Tenerife in uproar over cancellation of carnival (Roundup)

Feb 9, 2007, 16:43 GMT

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.