diff --git a/lib/torque/renderer/point.js b/lib/torque/renderer/point.js
index 6abcf55..950d17e 100644
--- a/lib/torque/renderer/point.js
+++ b/lib/torque/renderer/point.js
@@ -123,7 +123,7 @@ var CartoDatasource = require('./datasource');
 
       this.style = stripComments(cartocss);
 
-      if (PointRenderer.isTurboCarto(this.style)) {
+      if (PointRenderer.isTurboCarto(this.style) && self.layer) {
         var datasource = new CartoDatasource(self.layer._tiles);
         turbocarto(this.style, datasource, function (err, parsedCartoCSS) {
           if (err) {