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Fireworks Task Force Wasn't Designed To Ban Them

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By CARLOS MONCADA | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 14, 2008

CLEARWATER -- For the members of a statewide task force on fireworks, the overriding message from the public was clear: Please ban the bangs.

But a prohibition on exploding and aerial amusements, which a majority of blast-weary people across Florida told the panel they wanted, was not possible from the start.

"The fireworks task force wasn't created to ban fireworks," said Trey McCarley, a Tallahassee businessman who represented the public on the Florida Consumer Fireworks Task Force. "If the Legislature wanted to ban fireworks, they can do that anytime."

State lawmakers created the task force last year to study fireworks use and sales and suggest changes in regulation. The panel's recommendations, issued in January, will be considered in the coming legislative session.

Task force members held six public meetings across the state from September through December, including one in Clearwater. They heard sometimes impassioned pleas from a range of people, including fire chiefs, equestrians and ordinary residents, who wanted fireworks outlawed.

Many shared their personal experiences, blaming the devices for spooking their pets, damaging their cars or homes or injuring family members or friends. One Hillsborough County resident said a neighbor setting off fireworks caused her horse to slam repeatedly into a fence before it died.

State law limits permissible fireworks to those that don't explode or shoot into the air, such as sparklers and smoke bombs. For years, though, people have been able to buy illegal fireworks such as firecrackers and bottle rockets by signing a form swearing they intend to use the devices for exempt purposes such as scaring away birds from crops or fish farms.

Pinellas County passed an ordinance in 2003 closing that loophole, effectively banning fireworks that project in the air or explode. Several other counties, including Manatee and Palm Beach, have followed suit.

Yet Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch, a task force member who led the effort to pass his county's fireworks ordinance, now acknowledges that outlawing consumer fireworks doesn't work.

"We tried an outright ban in Pinellas County," he said. "I think what we learned from that is, as long as you have a hard-core group of folks who want to use aerial fireworks, they'll find a way to get them."

Welch also noted that the eight-member task force included three members of the fireworks industry, nearly 40 percent of the panel.

"We had a process that required 75 percent of us to agree on an issue," Welch said. "If you've got eight members and three of them are from the industry, you're never going to get to 75 percent to ban fireworks. So when you looked at the composition, that was never possible for us to do."

Still, Welch expressed satisfaction with the task force's recommendations. The suggestions include a ban on people younger than 18 buying, selling or possessing fireworks and a requirement that people obtain a license and receive safety training before they can use aerial fireworks.

Moreover, aerial fireworks could be set off only twice a year, New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July, and only at a designated location such as a fairground or ball field, away from residential areas.

"The fire marshals and some of the constituents who felt we should have an outright ban on all fireworks, obviously they think what we did was watered down," Welch said. "But it was obvious the Legislature did not want a recommendation of a ban on fireworks. We tried to come up with the best balance that was enforceable and got the most dangerous fireworks out of our residential areas."

Some anti-fireworks activists such as Wofford and Ann Johnson of Tampa were not entirely pleased with what the task force came up with but called it an improvement.

"It is a dangerous product, and we'd really like to see it out of the state,'' said Johnson, who since 2003 unsuccessfully has tried to persuade Hillsborough County leaders to ban fireworks. "But from a practical standpoint, I don't think that's going to happen. So we have to fall back on what's the best we can get."

Reporter Carlos Moncada can be reached at cmoncada@tampatrib.com or (727) 451-2333.

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