On that note while illegal drugs are a lot less dangerous then fire works people continue to use them. So I really doubt a silly law banning the use of fireworks will be obeyed.

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Fireworks ban in Mesa, Tempe not likely to deter users

Posted: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 11:00 am | Updated: 10:09 pm, Wed Dec 29, 2010.

By Garin Groff, Tribune

East Valley residents who want to ring in the new year with the flash and crackle of fireworks can finally do so legally — unless they’re in Tempe or Mesa.

Fireworks are still banned in those cities, but safety officials figure people will ignore the rules or that they aren’t familiar with the patchwork of local fireworks laws.

And who could blame the public for not knowing?

Fireworks are on display at the entrance of grocery stores, big-box retailers and at massive tents at major intersections everywhere, including in Tempe and Mesa. Many retailers haven’t bothered to let buyers know it’s illegal to use what they’re selling.

Public safety officials say they don’t expect local laws to deter people.

“I’m hoping people are smart enough to know that if they do use them illegally, they follow the directions on the box at least,” said Mike Reichling, a Tempe fire investigator. “We’re advising against it — it is against the law — but if people do use them, we hope they do use some common sense.”

Mesa residents may be surprised that fireworks are illegal right now, despite the City Council voting this month to allow their use leading up to New Year’s Day and Independence Day. The council wrestled with the issue so long that the new ordinance couldn’t take effect until February.

A state law that took effect Dec. 1 legalized consumer fireworks such as sparklers, cone fountains and smoke bombs, but anything that shoots into the air remains illegal in Arizona. The law lets cities ban or restrict fireworks use but they cannot restrict sales.

Chandler let the state law stand, while Gilbert restricts fireworks to Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, and July 3-5. Mesa allows them Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, and from June 28 to July 4. Fireworks supporters say it’s pointless to ban them at the two times of year they’re most popular, as the statewide prohibition had long been ignored. Tempe’s City Council looked at the issue differently.

“We figured if it was bad enough to ban certain times of the year, then it’s bad enough to ban the entire year,” Reichling said.

Firefighters expect injuries and property damage to rise now that fireworks are so easy to buy, and are now legal in some places. Fire departments across the state have created a new form to track injuries and damage, hoping to document what they predict will be a growing problem.

Tempe requires retailers to post signs saying fireworks are illegal in the city and Mesa’s ordinance will require signs with safety information. Mesa councilman Scott Somers doubts those signs will ever be in place because cities can’t regulate sales.

“What’s the punishment since there’s no licensing for this?” Somers said. “I think it’s a joke.”

Somers said fireworks supporters underestimate the damage of items as small as sparklers, which have triggered house fires. He cited an e-mail he got this week from a Mesa resident who submitted photos showing her evaporative cooler caught fire after an illegal bottle rocket struck it. A neighbor spotted teenagers using the fireworks and the blaze was stopped before spreading, but Somers said he fears what would happen if that kind of mishap took place in triple-digit heat. Somers, a firefighter who opposed legalization, said it’s only a matter of time before fireworks trigger a massive blaze in the wilderness.

“Eighty percent of our presidential emergency declarations are for fire, so we are a fire prone state,” Somers said. “And we’ve just turned fire into a toy.”

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ARIZONA FIREWORKS LAW

What’s legal:

Hand-held sparklers

Cylindrical fountains

Cone fountains

Illuminating torches

Wheels

Ground spinners

Flitter sparklers

Toy smoke devices

Wire sparklers or dipped sticks

Multiple tube fireworks devices and pyrotechnic articles

Any fireworks that rise into the air or detonate in the air, including bottle rockets, sky rockets, missile-type rockets, helicopters, torpedoes, roman candles and jumping jacks.

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Fireworks for sale in Arizona, but few places to use them legally

by Glen Creno - Dec. 31, 2010 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

Fireworks stores have popped up all over the Valley, but it will be easier to buy the pyrotechnics than to find a place to legally shoot them off at New Year's celebrations.

A new law allowing the sale of certain kinds of fireworks in Arizona took effect Dec. 1. Retailers say the business will be mainly seasonal, concentrated on New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July. Tonight's celebrations will be the first test of the law.

Fireworks are being sold in temporary displays in such big-chain retailers as Walmart, Costco, Target, Fry's Food Stores and Safeway, where shoppers can toss an assortment of pyrotechnics into the shopping cart along with pizza and lightbulbs. They also are for sale in temporary storefronts and tents around the Valley.

"Every day, we get a little busier as people find out we're here," said Ron McDaniel, who runs a fireworks store in Chandler.

But there's a catch in Arizona's new law. Although the sale of fireworks is allowed, the statute lets cities and towns restrict their use. Most cities in the Valley have instituted complete bans on fireworks. One allows them on specific days. The bans were imposed amid strenuous opposition to the new law by many municipal fire officials, who worry about public-safety threats and fire dangers posed by fireworks.

Every city in the Valley prohibits the use of fireworks with two exceptions. Glendale has not addressed the issue yet, so residents there are free to light up consumer fireworks on private property and to purchase sparklers, fountains and other small fireworks that shoot sparks but don't explode or fly into the sky.

Gilbert allows fireworks on private property on Dec. 31, Jan. 1 and July 3 through 5. Mesa is expected to take up the issue on Jan. 10, but fireworks are illegal this New Year's.

Phoenix, like most other cities, has passed an ordinance banning the use of consumer fireworks. However, it has stalled plans to change city codes that would regulate the storage and sales after industry leaders expressed concern that they would be too restrictive.

Phoenix residents who violate the city ban can be cited for a Class 1 misdemeanor with a potential $2,500 fine, six months in jail, or both.

"We're anticipating a lot of fireworks calls, and we'll be dispatching officers on those calls," Phoenix Police Cmdr. Chuck Miller said.

In Scottsdale, the penalty for using the banned types of fireworks is a Class 3 misdemeanor with a minimum fine of $275. Chandler can impose a fine as high as $1,000, while Gilbert plans to charge violators the cost of an emergency response.

In Mesa, Sgt. Ed Wessing, a police spokesman, said officers will respond if a call comes in, "but we won't be doing any specific patrols for people using fireworks."

The rules are different in Arizona counties, however. People can use fireworks in unincorporated areas unless a county declares a "reasonable risk" of wildfire. Fireworks are banned on public land, including national forests, national parks and state trust lands.

At least one wholesaler thinks some rules are over the top. Randy Herrman of Oshkosh, Wis.-based Hometown Fireworks, compared Arizona's fireworks rules to letting retailers sell chocolate bars and then telling customers they can't eat them.

"It's a silly law," he said. "The state says we can legally sell them. . . . But a large majority of cities have banned these items. They're putting the general public in a bad situation."

He said that the fireworks for sale in Arizona present a minor fire hazard and that, from a business standpoint, they won't generate enough sales to make fireworks a viable year-round business in the state.

Fire officials haven't backed off their opposition. Bobby Ruiz, Phoenix's assistant fire chief and city fire marshal, said legalizing fireworks creates too much potential for fires, even if the fireworks are used in ways that supposedly are safe. He predicted there will be a push in the upcoming session for the Legislature to overturn the law.

Phoenix Vice Mayor Michael Nowakowski said the city is getting calls from confused consumers who don't understand why they can buy fireworks in Phoenix but can't use them there. He said the city will have to develop a program for fireworks safety similar to the one instituted for pool safety.

"Shame on the fireworks companies" for not doing enough safety education, he said.

Mike Denning of Winco Fireworks of Utah said some retail customers have sold out and were reordering more by mid-December. He doesn't view the law as too restrictive.

Mike Williams of TNT Fireworks in Arizona said his company steered sales away from cities like Payson, Prescott and Flagstaff because of forest-fire hazards, even though fireworks are banned in national forests. In addition to its usage ban, Flagstaff requires sellers to keep a list of buyers. The state law requires buyers to be at least 16 years old.

Firefighters have held demonstrations of the allowed fireworks and are offering advice on safe use - once fireworks users locate a legal spot to use them.

Cam Hunter, spokeswoman for the Arizona State Forestry Division, said use areas should be cleared of anything that might catch fire and plenty of water or dirt kept nearby for flare-ups.

More on this topic

Fireworks in Arizona

What's allowed for sale

- Ground and hand-held sparkling devices
- Cylindrical fountains
- Cone fountains
- Illuminating torches
- Wheels
- Ground spinners
- Flitter sparklers
- Toy smoke devices
- Wire sparklers or dipped sticks
- Multiple tube fireworks devices

- Firecrackers

- Bottle rockets
- Skyrockets
- Missile-type rockets
- Helicopters
- Torpedoes
- Roman candles
- Jumping jacks

Municipalities that have banned fireworks:

- Avondale
- Buckeye
- Carefree
- Cave Creek
- Chandler
- Fountain Hills
- Goodyear
- Paradise Valley
- Peoria
- Phoenix
- Scottsdale
- Surprise
- Tempe
- Tolleson

- Gilbert allows fireworks on private property Dec. 31, Jan. 1, and July 3 through 5.
- Mesa bans fireworks, but the City Council will vote Jan. 10 on an ordinance that would legalize use of consumer fireworks during the July 4 and New Year's holidays in exchange for the fireworks industry agreeing to limit sales to the periods leading up to those holidays.

- Glendale
- Litchfield Park

Source

Mesa residents get mixed message on using fireworks

by Gary Nelson - Dec. 28, 2010 09:19 AM

The Arizona Republic

Talk about your mixed messages.

Thanks to a state law that took effect Dec. 1, Mesa residents can buy fireworks on just about every street corner in town.

Augmenting your holiday festivities with those sparklers, smoke bombs and other incendiary devices, however, remains illegal in the city.

But that doesn't mean that police will be spending the New Year's weekend chasing fireworks scofflaws.

"We'll respond if a call comes in, but we won't be doing any specific patrols for people using fireworks," said police spokesman Sgt. Ed Wessing. Violators could be fined or jailed.

Fire spokesman Forrest Smith said it's probably inevitable that people will be using the stuff this weekend. That being the case, Smith said, safety is the biggest worry.

"Our biggest concern is the safe usage," Smith said. "We're not endorsing the usage."

People using fireworks should have a fire extinguisher or a bucket of water on hand, Smith said.

"And a lot of it comes back to not lighting these fireworks indoors or anywhere near something combustible."

If Fire Chief Harry Beck had his way, Mesa would continue its all-out ban on using fireworks. He made those feelings known to the City Council this year as it debated a fireworks ordinance, and it's a drum he's been beating for a long time.

More than 20 years ago, while serving a deputy fire chief in Phoenix, Beck displayed a cache of illegal fireworks and talked about their dangers.

Those fireworks included not just explosive and flying devices such as firecrackers, M80s and bottle rockets, sales of which remain illegal in Arizona, but the kinds of things the Legislature legalized this year.

In that long-ago news conference Beck pointed out that children playing with smoke bombs had started a $24,000 fire at a Phoenix home.

More recently Beck and Councilman Scott Somers wrote an op-ed piece for The Mesa Republic saying that on July 4, 2008, fireworks ignited a three-story apartment complex in Mesa, causing $515,000 in damage, displacing 20 people and sending a firefighter to the hospital with heat stress.

They also said sparklers are not benign children's toys.

"When a child gets too close to an oven baking cookies at 350 degrees, we warn them away," they said. "Yet, we will hand a child a sparkler that burns at more than 1,200 degrees."

In addition, Somers recently used his Twitter account to share a policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics that said, "Every type of consumer firework has been associated with serious injury or death," and asserting that "the private use of fireworks should be banned."

Mesa's ban on fireworks use is embedded in the 2006 International Fire Code, which the city has adopted. The City Council tried to find a compromise on fireworks before the holiday season, but fell one vote short of the six that were needed to implement the law immediately.

The ordinance would allow fireworks to be used during the July 4 and New Year's holidays, in exchange for the fireworks industry signing a deal limiting sales to those times of year.

Fireworks outlets also would have had to post signs telling customers of Mesa's rules, and reminding them that under state law, no one under age 16 can buy the items.

Mesa's approach resembles that of Phoenix, which is trying to work out a similar deal with fireworks companies. Many other Valley cities have imposed total bans on using fireworks.

Final adoption of the ordinance will be on the council's Jan. 10 agenda, making it legal to use fireworks in Mesa next July 4.