Edward Torpiano was quick, as usual, to write back, two days after my letter (January 14) on the New Year's Eve party in Floriana. I did not want to answer with another letter, first because I do not wish to start a polemic, secondly because I was quite sure that Floriana's mayor Nigel Holland would add something new about the subject later on. In fact, I was proved correct when this newspaper carried a letter by him in which, for the first time as far as I know, he told me and the rest of Malta, that the police had after all sanctioned the holding of that party in St Anne Street.

I totally believe Mr Torpiano when he said that he went to the police several times to obtain a permit, but the police did not oblige in closing a traffic artery, when Floriana is blessed with more than one place to hold celebrations. If the same police closed it for Elton John they did not do the right thing; two wrongs do not make a right.

However, all this does not concern me. The council can close St Anne's forever, day and night, so far as I'm concerned. I also believe Mr Torpiano when he said that the party was a huge success, and I congratulate the council for it, but I am sorry to tell him that it is not what I heard on TV and read in newspapers.

But this does not concern me either. What does, though, and what should concern higher authorities, is that the mayor was reported as saying that "permit or no permit the council is going on with the party in St Anne Street, we are not breaking the law". That was what my letter was about; that was what disgusted me.

I am also disgusted at the fact that the police and its minister did not say a word on the matter. In his letter of January 20, Mr Holland informed me that the police had sanctioned the closing of the street.

Here again I believe Mr Holland, but was this change of heart by the police announced in the media before the road was closed or afterwards? Why did it have to take 20 days for the citizens to get to know?

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