Kent City Council committee to study fireworks ban

A Kent City Council committee began looking into whether a fireworks ban on the Fourth of July might lower the boom on illegal devices going off.

City Councilman Jim Berrios led a discussion during the Sept. 9 Public Safety Committee meeting about how big of a problem fireworks are in Kent and whether the city can do anything to combat the issue. Several residents asked the council at a July meeting to study the issue because of so many fireworks exploding in their neighborhoods.

“I’d like to take a look at any cities that had a recent ban and do those comparisons to see if it was the right thing to do or maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do,” Berrios said as he asked city staff to track down numbers from neighboring cities with bans, such as Renton, Tukwila, Des Moines and SeaTac. “That to me would be helpful if we can get that (data) in the future.”

Berrios came away disappointed that city staff didn’t have solid numbers about the number of warnings given in July to fireworks violators by police and fire officials.

Jon Napier, fire marshal with the Kent Fire Department Regional Fire Authority, said there were 341 fireworks complaints from July 2-5 this year compared to 190 the previous year.

“That was a significant increase and I think a lot of it had to do with it being a long weekend,” Napier said to the committee. “The seizures (of illegal fireworks) that we had were down this year. Part of it was some recording issues, we had 10 reported seizures and that was down from 71 last year.”

Berrios asked Napier what the recording issues were.

Napier said he had done tally sheets in the past but was out of town this year and the tallies didn’t get recorded this year.

“We had 129 warnings issued in 2013 and we didn’t have any recorded this year,” said Napier, who added numerous warnings were probably given based on the number of complaints but no numbers were kept.

There were two arrests for illegal fireworks and 16 fires caused by fireworks, mainly small brush fires that caused about $3,200 in losses compared to $4,500 in 2013.

But the number of illegal fireworks confiscated dropped from 150 pounds in 2013 to 20 pounds this year.

“We didn’t have a lot of seizures this year and I don’t know exactly what the issue is,” Napier said. “Some of it is seizures include fireworks dropped off by people at fire stations.”

“I am concerned that we didn’t get tighter (reported) numbers when we’re getting the number of phone calls and emails from people concerned,” Berrios said. “I was looking forward to being able to say here’s what we have, here’s what we’ve done and we gave citations and arrests and lots of warnings. I’m sorry to say but I’m disappointed to see these numbers for whatever reason. I’m assuming next year we will work through that process and make sure they are a lot tighter.”

Kent city code allows people to purchase and possess legal fireworks from June 28 to July 4 but fireworks can only be discharged from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on July 4. Violators of the code must pay a $250 fine.

Councilman Les Thomas said he has noticed even cities with bans have illegal fireworks going off.

“Renton, Federal Way and Tukwila have bans and yet when I drive through Renton it’s even worse than Kent,” Thomas said. “I’m not saying Kent’s good. But in Renton there is smoke everywhere and fireworks going off after 11. Is another ordinance going to help?”

Councilwoman Dana Ralph also wondered if a complete ban would help in Kent.

“A good portion of the emails we received this year were fireworks went off all weekend long,” Ralph said. “Fireworks were illegal all weekend long after 11 this year on a Friday. We continue to have complaints when they’re not legal. Trying to flush out where they go off, I have some strong concerns on resources.

“My concern is we’re setting up false expectations by saying we’re banning something when we don’t necessarily have data that says that’s going to have a significant impact and now there’s an additional strain on the Kent Police Department. …We’re setting up expectations that can never be met as long as we’re sitting here five miles away from a place (Muckleshoot Indian Tribe reservation) – whether we ban them or not – you can buy whatever you want.”

Deputy City Attorney Pat Fitzpatrick told the committee that if council decides to change its fireworks ordinance, it would take one year before going into effect under state law.

Napier said fireworks vendors asked and received that one-year protection from the state because they must order fireworks from China far ahead of July 4 and if cities where they sold fireworks suddenly banned them they would be left with a lot of extra inventory.