On Oahu, one can apply for a fireworks permit from the city anytime during the year. However, most permits are specific to one event, such as New Year’s, Chinese New Year and July Fourth. And purchase of firecrackers — the only legal consumer pyrotechnics on Oahu — is limited to five days before sanctioned booming starts.
Firecracker sales in advance of tonight’s festivities started on Wednesday and wrap up at midnight. A permit will fetch up to 5,000 firecrackers, and Honolulu law does not prohibit anyone from obtaining more than one permit. However, the sizzling and pops are limited to a four-hour New Year’s window, starting at 9 p.m. today.
This holiday season, the city issued 17,676 permits — a sizable drop from last year’s count of 20,951. But whether that signals a less noisy night ahead is dubious. What is loud and clear is that outlaw launchings have been underway for weeks and months.
On paper, the city’s handling of fireworks aims for a tidy balance of demands — one for noisy revelry, and another for neighborhood peace and quiet. But with Honolulu Police this year already responding to hundreds of fireworks-related calls, what we have in actuality is weak city law.
In 2010, the Honolulu City Council voted to ban consumer fireworks with the exception of firecrackers, which are allowed with the purchase of the $25 permit. In the years immediately following the ban, months and weeks preceding New Year’s and other fireworks-focused holidays were blissfully quieter in many neighborhoods.
In recent years, sadly, there have been upticks in reports of flouting fireworks time limits and igniting contraband — primarily aerials and explosives, but also sparklers and fountains. Illegal fireworks can be dangerous, and the noise can cause distress for animals, the elderly, and others with special needs.
The City Council is slated to hold its first meeting of 2019 on Wednesday. As the Council’s new leadership sifts through priorities, it should consider exploring how to make fireworks-related policy more effective.
Currently, anyone found selling, possessing or using illegal fireworks could face stiff penalties: up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $2,000.
Unfortunately, that’s apparently not daunting enough for some people, like the Ewa Beach man arrested shortly before Christmas at a checkpoint on Kualakai Parkway. He was taken into police custody under suspicion of felony possession of illegal fireworks — a Class C felony, if the total fireworks weight is 25 pounds or more.
DURING last year’s holiday season, officers issued 64 fireworks-related citations and made five fireworks-related arrests, from Dec. 15, 2017, to Jan. 2. Still, catching scofflaws in the act can be difficult. CrimeStoppers notes that cell phone footage can be used in court, but only if the person who shot it is willing to testify.
Before the booming starts in advance of 2020, the City Council, in tandem with Honolulu’s police and fire departments, should examine possibilities for stepping up effective law enforcement and neighborhood vigilance. Also, up for review should be strategies for halting the flow of illegal fireworks into the city, such as through shipment inspections and other tactics.
Meanwhile, this New Year’s, if you see something suspicious, for safety’s sake, report it. For example, it’s illegal for minors to use firecrackers, even with adult supervision. It’s also unlawful to throw an ignited firecracker at a person or an animal, or from above the first floor of a building, or at a vehicle.
Another offense: setting of a firecracker on public ways or in parks, beaches, wildlife preserves, places of worship, on school grounds or within 500 feet of a hotel as well as within 1,000 feet of hospitals and health and elderly care facilities.
These restrictions are meant to keep our growing neighborhoods safer and enjoyable for all — not be overtaken by the blastings of obnoxious scofflaws.
