Scarborough fireworks limited to five days a year

SCARBOROUGH — Scarborough is on the verge of limiting the use of consumer fireworks to just five days during the year, and if you’re scared by the commotion created on those days, feel free to sound off about it – even if you’re a dog.

In what Town Manager Tom Hall termed a “dramatic departure” from the charge given to it by the full council, the ordinance committee voted at its Jan. 31 meeting to restrict the use of consumer fireworks to just five days – Dec. 31, Jan. 1, and July 3-5.

That change came after committee members sat down to recognize the newly legal noisemakers as an exemption in the town’s noise abatement ordinance. After all, as Town Manager Tom Hall pointed out, local police can hardly summons citizens for creating “loud, boisterous unnecessary noises” when using a product legalized by the state Legislature last year, especially after the council refused to enact a local ban.

However, Catherine Rogers, owner of the Dog Paws Inn on Gorham Road, was quick to point out that while Scarborough residents are free to shoot off consumer-level fireworks with impunity, she could be fined up to $400 per day if the animals in her kennel react to that noise even “intermittently” over a 30-minute period.

“The fireworks section of this ordinance is, in reality, written to protect the noise makers rather than the people who are disturbed by the noise,” said Rogers, noting that no one has complained of noise from her kennel since it opened nearly nine years ago.

Rogers also said that by allowing fireworks use in Scarborough, the council could cause her customers to seek out placement for their pets in less stressful environments, such as in neighboring municipalities where the product has been outlawed.

“Scarborough says it wants to be business friendly. Well, here I am saying this is not a business friendly ordinance,” she said.

“You can’t blame a dog from reacting to stimuli like that, nor can you control it,” agreed Luc Bergeron, owner of Kamp K-9 on County Road. “You’ll be making law breakers out of an entire group of dog-owning residents.”

Bergeron pointed out an additional discrepancy, noting that while the legal noise of fireworks can exceed 140 decibels, the fine-inducing bark of a dog generally rings in at 60-100 decibels.

“Some would not be held responsible for the tumult they create, although I would be held accountable for by dog customers’ reactions to those noises,” said Bergeron.

Committee members agreed with the kennel owners, voting unanimously to stipulate that, “a dog shall not be deemed to be a ‘barking dog’” if it is merely reacting to noise from nearby fireworks.

More changes, including houses of allowable use, could come when the ordinance committee holds a special session, immediately prior to the Feb. 13 Town Council meeting.

Currently, fireworks can be shot off on the approved days from 9 a.m. until 12:30 a.m. the following day, except on Jan. 1 and July 3 and 5 (when those latter two dates fall on weekdays). Then the cut-off time would be 10 p.m.

But committee Chairwoman Carol Rancourt wants additional restrictions.

“I don’t see any reasoning whatsoever for fireworks to go off during daylight hours,” she said.

Rancourt, occasionally abetted by Councilor Karen D-Andrea, has pushed the fireworks issue in Scarborough.

In an informal consensus vote Sept. 7, the council backed Hall’s assertion that the town should avoid enacting an outright ban on fireworks, instead limiting its reaction to the relaxing of state statutes to a requirement for sprinkler systems in any store set up to store or sell fireworks in town.

The council adopted the new sprinkler rules Dec. 21. However, in the meantime, outright bans on the sale and use of consumer fireworks were passed on Portland (on Sept. 19), South Portland (Oct. 17) and Cape Elizabeth (Nov. 14), as well as in many other cities and towns throughout the region.

Saying that Scarborough needed to be “a good neighbor” and not allow a product its neighbors were outlawing, Rancourt and D’Andrea, sought a similar ban. That attempt failed in a 3-2 vote, Nov. 16.

During debate, Councilor Richard Sullivan said Scarborough “shouldn’t jump on the bandwagon” of towns lining up to ban the small-scale fireworks. Instead, he said, the town should wait and see what issues, if any develop – an assessment that seemed to carry some weight with Sullivan’s fellow councilors, given his position as a Portland firefighter.

“Before we jump, we need to get it right,” he said.

But by January, Sullivan had replaced D’Andrea on the ordinance committee, and seemed more amenable to making a change, even though New Year’s Eve had come and gone without incident.

“I was never for not having some rules for fireworks,” he said at the Jan. 31 committee meeting. “However, five councilors chose to allow making fireworks legal. How we do that is another story. We do need guidelines. There’s no doubt about that. I just want to send them [the full council] an acceptable package.”

Before the council can consider that package, it would have to first vote away its initial change to recognize fireworks as a noise exemption, said Hall, citing “complicated parliamentary procedure.”

Once that happens, Hall said, the council can then begin to consider the 360-day ban in a newly created consumer fireworks ordinance, as well as the noise abatement provision forgiving excitable dogs.

A first reading of both ordinance changes is expected at the Feb. 13 council meeting.