Revenue from fireworks stands provides local high school band students with uniforms, travel money for performances and extra musical instruction, a band booster told the Vancouver City Council on Monday.
“We follow all the rules,” Carol Prather said. “We benefit our schools, our students, our community, and without the sales of fireworks, we’re going to lose that avenue of revenue.”
Then a 65-year-old grandmother took the microphone to describe how she climbed a ladder with a hose to put out a fire that bottle rockets ignited on her new roof this summer.
“People are frightened. People are angry and upset,” Patricia Hamlin told the council. “Please ban these damn fireworks.”
After listening to arguments from a handful of residents representing both sides of the fireworks debate, the city council voted to move ahead with the second reading of an ordinance that would ban all personal fireworks within Vancouver city limits starting in 2017. Under state law, any changes in fireworks regulations require 365 days’ notice, so next year’s Fourth of July cannot be affected.
The council will consider final approval of the ordinance at its Oct. 5 meeting at 7 p.m. at City Hall. A public hearing will be held before the council votes.
Councilor Alishia Topper cast the lone vote against the motion on the grounds that she objected to the process. She had advocated for a citizens’ advisory vote on the matter. If a majority of citizens had opposed the ban, she would have lobbied for city authority to declare an emergency fireworks ban under extremely dry conditions and limit fireworks to ground level, Topper said.
“That, to me, would be a very good compromise,” she said.
Councilor Bill Turlay, who supports the ban, said he’d been hearing people talking about freedom to shoot off fireworks.
“I have freedoms, too,” he said. “If you’re going to pollute, and you’re going to make noise, and you’re going to rain things down on my house, your right and your freedom stops at my property line, because I have rights, too.”
In 2012, the council restricted the use of fireworks to July 4 only and limited the days fireworks could be sold to July 2, 3 and 4. Fireworks are not allowed on New Year’s Eve in city limits. Fireworks rules vary in other Clark County jurisdictions.
Vancouver is the largest city in the state that still allows personal fireworks.
