Fireworks use falls to new law

A highly restrictive fireworks law has put a damper on the first New Year’s Eve — traditionally Hawaii’s biggest annual fireworks celebration — under the new city ordinance, say fireworks shoppers.

"It’s sad ’cause the kids say, ‘Where’s all the other stuff?’" said Kanani Haole, 43, of Waimanalo, who was shopping for fireworks at the Don Quijote store on Kaheka Street. "We’ll have to find other means to entertain us."

The new law, which went into effect Jan. 1, bans all fireworks on Oahu except firecrackers with a permit. The ban includes all novelty consumer fireworks, such as sparklers, ground bloomers and fountains. Aerial fireworks were already banned unless part of a professional display.

The three other counties still allow the usual array of fireworks.

Sales of firecracker permits on Oahu are down about 15 percent, with 8,461 issued this year compared with 10,008 in 2010. In addition, the city issued only 43 retail licenses for businesses to sell fireworks, down from the average of 143 licenses in each of the previous three years, Fire Capt. Terry Seelig said.

Only 15 percent of 843 respondents to an unscientific Star-Advertiser online poll Tuesday said they would be lighting firecrackers this year.

Haole and four of her children were buying firecrackers Tuesday for their family’s big New Year’s Eve bash. They had six city permits; each $25 permit authorizes a person to buy 5,000 firecrackers.

Unlike past years when a large, bustling central portion of the store held a variety of fireworks, Don Quijote has relegated its fireworks display to a small corner of the store containing a few firecrackers, champagne party poppers and Pop-Pop Snappers.

A Don Quijote spokesman said he could not comment on fireworks sales.

Elise Ono, 18, of Moanalua, whose favorite fireworks are fountains, said at Don Quijote, "I’m so sad. They’re so pretty."

"It was a part of our growing up," Haole said. "My parents would buy us one pack (of firecrackers) each, and we separated it and would pop one at a time."

Haole’s daughter Kailima, 17, said, "They should change it back to the normal because it’s not the same without the fireworks. These (firecrackers) make as much smoke and noise as the other ones."

Another change this year was that the city had made the deadline to buy firecracker permits 10 days earlier, Dec. 21. Until this year people could buy firecracker permits on New Year’s Eve.

"I just heard it on the news (last week), ‘Today is the last day,’ and I said, ‘Oh, geez,’" said Francis Kaneakua, who said he ran out and got a permit Dec. 21. "The day I’m afraid of is the day they say, ‘No more.’ I think I’m going to see it in my lifetime.

"I don’t blame them," Kaneakua said, recalling one smoky New Year’s Eve in Kaneohe. "You look down, it looks like a bowlful of smoke. You could see the smoke coming out of my breath. That’s a genuine health concern."

BY the time a person buys a permit, then coughs up cash to buy the firecrackers, a pack of 5,000 firecrackers will total about $60, Kaneakua said.

TaraMarie Panoke of Haleiwa started a petition on Change.org to "unban fireworks in Hawaii," saying on the website, "The ban takes away our freedoms, demoralizes our spirits, stifles and crushes our family, local, and cultural traditions. It is a blow to retailers and also to the pockets of consumers and may even be self-defeating of its purpose due to the fact that consumers can no longer buy the safer, less smoke-causing versions of firecrackers."

Panoke said if the city’s aim is to protect people, why are retailers allowed to sell only traditional firecrackers when a quieter, less costly version producing less debris and smoke with a lower fire risk is banned?