Ask anyone who lives in Belize City, or any other municipality, for
that matter, about something that their neighbour does which really drives them
crazy and you could get a thousand complaints on every block. Whether it’s
loud music, a business that gobbles up all the neighbourhood parking, late night
partying, an un-kempt yard, or even noxious fumes from a standby generator –
these are the things that everyone has to live with and find a way to cope or
do our next best. But San Pedrana Celi Greif says, not her. She lives in the
heart of San Pedro Town right beside the biggest supermarket in town. And now
that supermarket is putting a generator just a few feet form her window. And
what makes her different is that she says she’s going to challenge her
neighbour using the law or even retaliatory force if necessary. Here’s
her story.
Keith Swift Reporting,
Celi Grief’s grief is about this Caterpillar brand generator. It sits
at the rear of the newly rebuilt Wing’s Department Store in San Pedro.
Celi Grief lives at the back of the building – which puts her in the front
of the generator. She says it is too close to her home for comfort.
Celi Grief, Unhappy with generator
“He is installing a generator that is going to be very noisy. It causes environmental problems. Maybe the gentleman has started and has gotten permission
from the committee but what he is doing is obviously wrong. The noise is not
going to be acceptable and he has other options of putting his generator on
top of the roof to reduce the noise and that is my main concern.”
Celi Grief says that the generator will cause noise pollution. Now that is
understandable except that you have to consider that she lives near the airstrip
and she is not complaining about the noise from that.
Celi Grief,
“I’ve lived in this area, my father’s building has been
here about 36 years maybe.”
Keith Swift,
“And apart from the planes it is a normally quiet area?”
Celi Grief,
“Well yes apart from the airplanes and the usual noise the problem
is that this is just recently being put.”
Keith Swift,
“It is going to be noise but we live around noise.”
Celi Grief,
“Well they are going to use it only when there is no electricity so
you’re already going to be hot and then there is going to be the noise
from it and this is diesel, the pollution and the noise is going to bounce from
one wall to the next wall and it is just not acceptable. I think that the gentleman
could easily put it up on top.”
A manager at Wing’s told us off camera that the generator is enclosed
and won’t cause noise or air pollution. But more than the store says and
Celi Grief concedes that the project has gotten the green light from the island’s
building authority.
Celi Grief,
“This one is just being put in. This gentleman, we here in Belize
are complacent people, we don’t, we allow people to do things to us until
its too late but that doesn’t mean that because I waited I don’t
have the right. As a human being I have the right to defend my way of living.
I was here before he was. It is not something that I moved into, it is something
that he is erecting right now today as we speak.”
There is one further complaint about the building’s proximity to the
home of Francisca Graniel.
Celi Grief,
“We have apartments in front of us, we have apartments to the side,
we have Belizean Reef – we have a community here and we don’t need
more noise than we already have.”