City close to fireworks ban

SOUTH PORTLAND — South Portland is one step closer to following in the trail blazed by its larger namesake, having moved Monday to outlaw the use of consumer fireworks within city limits.

The ordinance passed its first reading 7-0. Final passage is expected at the Oct. 17 council meeting. The ordinance is based on Portland’s new ban, adopted Sept. 17 and effective Oct. 20.

Both works follow state action taken July 1, when Gov. Paul LePage signed a bill that legalizes as of Jan. 1, 2012, the sale and use of so-called "consumer fireworks" - any number of small non-combustible devices not including "missile" products, such as bottle rockets, skyrockets and aerial spinners.

The law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, contains some restrictions on the sale of fireworks, such as a provision on how retailers store them, but allows use any day of the year, on private property, from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. On July 4 and Dec. 31, use is permitted until 12:30 the following morning.

However, the law does have an "out," under which any municipality may enact local restrictions, up to and including an outright ban on sale and use within its borders.

Although cities and towns cannot outlaw possession – the state law does not give them that much leeway – South Portland’s proposal does say that “no person shall . . .  possess with the intent to use.”

On Tuesday, Police Chief Ed Googins said determining intent is simply a matter of “putting two and two together.”

“Essentially the way we’ve been able to do it up until now is if we come across people who have them in their pocket, or on their person, and we’re investigating a complaint of fireworks being used in that area, that’s usually where were at.”

In other words, if you happen to have fireworks in an area where fireworks have been reported going off, you can probably look forward to a fine ranging from $200 to $400. Get caught twice and the fine jumps to $300 to $600 per violation. The fines for selling fireworks in city limits would start at $500, the jump to $1,000 per violation after the first offense.

“But,” said Googins, “for the person who may buy fireworks in the town next door where they might be legal, and is simply driving them to their home, they are not violating the law.”

Still, some people are unimpressed with South Portland efforts on behalf of public safety, a question many councilors appear to have taken to heart.

"Who's going to shoot these off?" asked Councilor Maxine Beecher, rhetorically, when the issue was first raised at a Sept. 12 workshop. "I'll tell you what,” she answered herself, “it's kids.

But Dan Peart, director of showroom operations for Phantom Fireworks, a company headquartered in Youngstown, Ohio, with 54 shops nationwide, said Beecher and her peers grossly misunderstand what the new law has decriminalized.

“A consumer firework does not explode,” he said. “Chemically, it burns. You could take several consumer fireworks, put them in a Dixie cup, and at worst you’d flip the cup.

“I think that what it is with fireworks, even to this day, and especially in state like Maine where sparklers were the only thing allowed – it’s the issue of not being familiar with what’s out there.”

Not only did the Legislature not legalize the type of fireworks you’re likely to see on Independence Day, it also did not OK popular noisemakers like M-80s and cherry bombs.

Those, said Peart, “are items that don’t have any place in the market.” They contain as much as three grams of flash powders. Meanwhile, the items that Peart sells, like ladyfingers, contain 50 milliliters. It’s the difference, he said, “between two shakes of salt, and the entire shaker.”

        

“These are inherently safe,” he said. “They don’t have misfires, they don’t explode in your hands.”

Pearnt, who was in Maine this spring lobbying for the new legislation, could not be at Monday’s council meeting. He was in Minneapolis at a meeting of the National Fire Protection Association, the national fire safety group he serves as a member of its fireworks committee. He will be back, however. His company already has begun looking for places to set up shop in South Portland and Scarborough, with plans to open as soon as the law takes effect Jan. 1.

Whether or not South Portland allows that to happen, Pearnt plans to take Maine’s new fireworks law, which he calls “the Cadillac of fireworks legislation” on the road, as a model to be adopted by other states.

“This is truly one of the finest pieces of consume fireworks legislation I’ve ever seen,” he said, Friday. What your state has done is take the very best safety standards from every state where our products are legal, and merged them into one document. It’s brilliant. What they’ve don is they’ve made it so regulated with so many checkpoints you have to go through, you have to operate honorably.”