Afrofest, North America’s largest free celebration of African music, dance, art and culture is once again in peril because of harsh treatment from Toronto city hall. Officials say last year’s celebration was too loud, and carried on well beyond its permitted time on one of two festival dates. The first claim is unproven, while the second is being overblown. The city plans to cut one of Afrofest’s two scheduled dates, presumably to teach festival organizers a lesson. In doing so, the city is needlessly jeopardizing a perennial economic and cultural base for Africans.

Afrofest outgrew Queen’s Park four years ago and moved to the well-to-do locale of Woodbine Park, near the beaches. Although the park regularly hosts events, residents have taken particular exception to the sounds of African revelry. Let’s be honest: no mass gathering of black people in this city or country can escape white anxiety and exaggeration. But the city can fix any issues regarding Afrofest without threatening its decades of successful celebration.

The city permit issued to Afrofest last year said the noise must remain below 85 decibels. According to Peter Toh, the president of Afrofest organizers Music Africa, residents and city staff repeatedly complained about the noise last year, but bylaw officers and police never provided officials with a decibel measurement or citation of alleged noise violations.

Notably, Afrofest employs the same company that runs nearly every other festival at Woodbine Park. The other fetes don’t seem to receive anywhere near the volume of complaints that Afrofest does. Toh calls this discrimination. “If you have five festivals doing the same thing, and out of the five festivals, only one gets into trouble, what do you think that is?” he said during a phone interview this week. “It is from that point that I consider it to be discriminatory.”

Toh and city staff agree that the festival exceeded its time limitation last year. The city originally said organizers could extend music to 9 p.m. — it’s usually 8 p.m. — to host a procession of the torch for the 2015 Pan Am Games. Months later, less than three weeks before the festival, the city told Afrofest it would only have until 8 p.m. Toh says the last-minute change caused confusion, but takes responsibility for the infraction.

The time violation — one hour and 20 minutes under the final agreement — is now being used to justify the halving of a festival that attracted an estimated 120,000 people last year. Toh is convinced of the devastating impact of losing an entire day of the program.

“Afrofest plays a very significant role in the micro-economy of the African community in Toronto,” Toh said. “If you have products to sell, where else would you rather be than Afrofest?” He added that many local artistic talents have gotten their start at the gathering. “Removing a whole day amounts to tactically destroying the festival,” warned Toh.

Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon, whose ward includes Woodbine Park, has been vocally defending the city’s decision. McMahon says Afrofest’s debut at Woodbine in 2012 passed without incident, but that organizers “have a history of problems” in subsequent years. When I asked her for evidence that Afrofest breached decibel levels, McMahon said she didn’t have any and referred me to Parks staff. “There are tons of festivals every summer — I’m not in the habit of policing them,” McMahon said without irony.

Matthew Cutler, a spokesperson for Parks Forestry and Recreation, told me the city is more concerned with the breaking of a clear time limit than with the volume, which his staff do not measure when investigating complaints. While Cutler said trimming the festival is a “natural next step” in working with Music Africa, he also acknowledged that “bias and people’s perceptions of these things, particularly around noise and how we complain, can have an impact on particular communities, and is something we need to be mindful of.”

McMahon has publicly chastised organizers, saying this week that if they “behave” this year, they can have both festival dates back next year. This kind of patronizing attitude is threatening to ruin a festival that, even according to its critics, is a shining success. Cutler said all major festivities have the problems Afrofest has. If that is so, the city’s method for dealing with those problems should not involve the harsh tactics being used here.

When the city tried to deny Afrofest a permit to Queen’s Park in 2011, a city official said, “the number of people and success of the festival is partly working against itself.” Even the event’s success seems to have contributed to a negative impression in the minds of city staff and many residents. Afrofest doesn’t need to be lectured or sanctioned into compliance. Officials should restore the full program and keep working with Music Africa out of respect for the bounty the festival brings to Toronto every summer.

Desmond Cole is a Toronto-based journalist. His column appears every Thursday.