Sta Venera fireworks permit request worries golfers

Golfers are worried about their safety if the Sta Venera feast organisers are allowed to let off fireworks near their club in Marsa this weekend when a children's party, among other activities, will be held.

After losing more than €200,000 worth of clubs and shoes in a locker room fire at the Royal Malta Golf Club on Sunday night - suspected to have been caused by debris from the Qormi feast's fireworks - the club is determined to take the matter to court to ensure the incident does not repeat itself.

"People from the Sta Venera feast came to the club to obtain our blessing but we said no," said Albert Bonello, acting secretary of the Marsa Sports' Club that hosts the Royal Malta Golf Club (RMGC).

"Although the meeting was cordial, if they go ahead and obtain the permit, we will file for the issue of a warrant of prohibitory injunction asking the courts to stop them," he said.

RMGC managing secretary Vanessa Galea added: "We don't want the other half of the club to burn down and are worried for our golfers' safety... There have been times when we even found unexploded petards on the lawn."

The July 26 Fireworks committee that organises the pyrotechnics displays for the Sta Venera feast applied to let off fireworks from a ditch near the golf club on Saturday and Sunday evening, she explained.

"On Saturday night, the club will be hosting a barbecue for its junior members and their parents in the entertainment area that overlooks the site from where the fireworks will be let off," Ms Galea said, adding there were 80 golfers aged between five and 16.

In an attempt to justify her concern, she pointed to the netting that covered the club's entertainment area: it was littered with firework debris and had circular holes burnt in some areas.

In the background, men cleaned up the golf course from pieces of burnt paper and other debris.

Mr Bonello added that the Sta Venera organisers would be letting off their fireworks from the Sta Venera tunnels as usual. However, the area was not licensed to let off larger fireworks, so they applied to let them off from the Marsa ditch.

When contacted, a representative of the July 26 Fireworks committee preferred not to comment adding that The Times should stop trying to give fireworks' enthusiasts a bad image.

Mr Bonello said the Sta Venera feast organisers had applied to the Land Department to set off the fireworks from the ditch that did not technically form part of the golf club's grounds, yet was adjacent.

The department registered a "no objection", so the permit was pending a police licence, he said. Questions sent to the police yesterday afternoon remained unanswered at the time of writing.

Mr Bonello elaborated that when the Marsa Sports Club signed the 49-year lease agreement with the department in 2002, one of the conditions imposed was allowing the organisers of Qormi's St Sebastian feast to let off fireworks from the land on 15 specified days of the year.

Ms Galea explained that, since the golf club knew about these days, it never organised events on those occasions. However, she said, the Sta Venera feast was not listed in their diary, so activities were planned and bookings taken.

Every year, she said, the club sustained some form of damage but this year was accentuated by the wind direction that blew smouldering debris onto the club.

Meanwhile, golfers yesterday visited the club to check whether their belongings had been damaged.

The club's oldest golfer, 90-year-old Millie Hampson, was glad to find that her clubs were untouched because they were kept in a recently-built locker room.

Ms Hampson said she had been a member of the RMGC for 34 years and always remembered the annual fear that the fireworks might burn down the place.

"It's so sad," she kept repeating as she peeked into the burnt locker rooms where her friends' treasured golfing equipment was burnt to smithereens.