Vaughan councillor calls accusations blaming her for cancellation of Carnival Kingdom concert ‘unfair’

Thestar.com
August 8, 2018
Alexandra Jones

A Vaughan councillor, who says she’s received “many nasty and inaccurate accusations” by angry ticket-holders of a popular Caribana event that was cancelled, says she wasn’t part of the decision to revoke the show’s permit.

Organizers said they were told their permit had been revoked just two hours before the doors were to open Saturday night.

Machel Montano, seen here performing in New York in 2016, was supposed to play in Vaughan on the weekend but the permit for the show was revoked on the day of the event.

Carnival Kingdom was to take place at the Improve Canada outdoor entertainment complex on Keele St., near Highway 407.

It was the first time SOS Fest attempted to host the event, which had been running for seven years, in Vaughan. Tickets ranged from $35 to $95, and about 5,000 had been sold. Machel Montano was one of the acts scheduled to perform.

CaribanaToronto.com, which promoted the Carnival Kingdom event, is not connected to the group that runs the downtown Toronto Caribbean Carnival parade.

Ward 4 Councillor Sandra Racco, who represents north Concord/Thornhill, said in an email to the Star that she received many messages from upset residents Saturday.

They were complaining about a Friday night concert with “very loud music blaring across the neighbourhood from … midnight to well past 3 a.m.

“As an elected official, my job is to represent my residents and businesses when they bring concerns to me,” she said in the email.

Singer Machel Montano, seen here performing in New York in 2016, was to play in Vaughan on Saturday night at a Caribana event but the show was cancelled because the city revoked the event’s permit.

Caribana’s ‘Carnival Kingdom’ event cancelled with little notice, leaving concert-goers furious
She said she then forwarded those concerns to city of Vaughan staff, asking them to investigate.

“Neither I, nor any of my council colleagues, were consulted during the review by staff. The decision to revoke the special event permit was done solely by our staff,” Racco said.

“Sadly, I have been on the receiving end of many nasty and inaccurate accusations, particularly from ticket-holders upset that the permit was revoked, cancelling other events scheduled for this weekend. This is very unfair. I did my job in responding on behalf of my constituents, who I believe had legitimate concerns about loud music keeping them awake.”

Racco said she is a big supporter of festivals and community events.

“At the same time, I strongly believe that these events must respect bylaws and permit requirements,” she said. “Loud music blaring until the early hours of the morning is clearly not acceptable.”

The city of Vaughan posted a statement Sunday on Facebook saying its By-law and Compliance, Licensing and Permit Service staff had revoked the Carnival Kingdom permit “after it was determined that organizers did not comply with the terms of the permit.”

The statement clarified that the decision had nothing to do with the mayor or the council.

One of the residents who complained about the noise was David Sieger, who lives near Dufferin St. and Clark Ave. W., more than two kilometres from the venue.

He said he went to sleep Friday night and then was woken up at 1:45 a.m. by the noise.

“It sounded like somebody had set up speakers in our backyard,” he told the Star. “The whole house was kind of vibrating from (it).”

The event held at that venue Friday night was also promoted by SOS Fest, called Re-Jouvert-Mate. It’s not clear if this event was the source of the noise that disturbed Sieger, but he believes it was.

When Sieger called York Regional Police, they told him they had already received a number of calls from other residents complaining about the noise but that the organizers of the event had a permit until 3 a.m.

“I was just flabbergasted by that, because I just couldn’t believe that the city would agree to this, especially in light of what had happened previously,” Sieger said.

He’s lived in the area for 25 years, and was referring to an event in 2012 over Caribana weekend at Coconuts Lounge, near Keele St. and Steeles Ave. W., that drew numerous noise complaints.

Ricardo Rowe, the legal representative for SOS Fest, said that he’d spoken to police and that they said the noise complaints Saturday were all coming from regions outside of the immediate vicinity of the venue, which is in an industrial area.

Police told him that no one in the immediate district had called in any complaints. People on social media either at the event or in the area stated that the volume shouldn’t have been loud enough for the complaints received.

“It makes no sense, it’s not logical,” Rowe said. “People (around) York University … just a kilometre south. No one heard it at York University, they didn’t even know that this festival was going on.”