Santa Cruz de Tenerife court gives go-ahead to Carnival street festivities
Santa Cruz de Tenerife Carnival is back on the streets. Court number 1 in Santa Cruz ordered the lifting of the temporary suspension order which had prohibited the night-time musical acts in the street, planned to start on Friday. The new ruling from Judge Jaime Guilarte Martín Calero, came after he had met with all the parts concerned this morning. He considered the suspension order could not remain in place because the matter had already been ruled on in 2006 and therefore had been resolved.
The Santa Cruz court rejected a petition by a neighbor’s group to ban the celebrations because of excess noise saying a similar petition had already been dismissed by the court last year, Spanish National Radio said.
Santa Cruz’s town hall had argued that the noise levels during the festivities were not constant and only lasted for just over a week each year.
Santa Cruz got a shock last Thursday when the same court accepted the neighbors’ petition pending consultation with all parties involved.
The Santa Cruz celebrations bring tens of thousand of people onto the street nightly for parades, concerts and dancing. And officials had calculated that toning the carnival down could cost the capital as much as €5 million (£3.34 million), as well as causing incalculable damage to the tourism sector.
Speaking after the court’s decision to let the massive party take place, Santa Cruz de Tenerife mayor Miguel Zerolo said: “[The carnival] is a celebration more than 200 years old, which has survived famine, epidemics and the Civil War.”
The carnival kicks off in late January but gets into full swing in the latter part of February. Second only to Mardi Gras in Rio de Janeiro, the carnival is renowned for its flamboyance, music and party atmosphere.
But it is the weekend of full-on partying and the annual horse parade that sets the Santa Cruz de Tenerife carnival apart from its counterparts.
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