For a Bang-Up 4th Many Rocket Off to ‘Safe-Sane’ Stands

The two youths from Chatsworth had a problem and a plan.

Derek Hopkey and Craig White wanted to buy fireworks one blistering day this week, hoping to add some smoke and sparks to today’s festivities. The problem was, fireworks are banned in their community and elsewhere in the City of Los Angeles.

The plan was simple. The boys, both 16, just hopped into a car and gunned for San Fernando, where each year at this time crowds gather to buy fireworks sold legally by community groups from red, white and blue stands.

“It’s the only place that sells them,” White said.

San Fernando, indeed, is the only place in the San Fernando Valley area where the use or sale of fireworks is permitted. As a result, for decades people have flocked before the Fourth of July to the 2.5 square-mile city which is surrounded by the City of Los Angeles.

The people who sell fireworks there say most of their customers are out-of-towners, a fact that troubles Los Angeles fire officials. They fear brush fires and injuries from fireworks sold in San Fernando and dozens of other communities in the county that permit the sale of so-called “safe-and-sane” fireworks approved by the state.

Municipalities Have Option

Even as the fireworks business continued briskly in San Fernando Thursday, the Los Angeles City Board of Fire Commissioners passed a resolution asking the Los Angeles City Council to lobby California legislators to ban the private use of any fireworks statewide. The state now gives municipalities the right to decide whether to allow the sale of approved fireworks.

The Los Angeles fire officials say that even “safe-and-sane” fireworks are dangerous and they have posted signs just outside the San Fernando city limits warning that the fireworks are illegal in Los Angeles.

“We don’t consider any kind of fireworks as safe and sane,” said Aileen Adams, the president of the board. “We’ve seen documented cases of children being injured by all kinds of fireworks, even those classified as safe and sane.”

San Fernando leaders argue, however, that the fireworks have been deemed safe by the state fire marshal and that halting the sales would rob the city and nonprofit community organizations--the only groups permitted to operate the stands--of needed funds at a time when government budgets are tight.

‘Opportunity to Raise Money’

“It gives these groups an opportunity to raise some money,” City Administrator Don Penman said. “I respect the L. A. fire commissioners’ opinion, but they do not proscribe the law for the entire state.”

The signs and laws clearly have not stopped many people from coming to San Fernando and taking the fireworks home.

Hopkey and White, for instance, said they would take the goods they bought at four stands in San Fernando to a street in Chatsworth, where they would set them off. Hopkey said he might even “make a few extra bucks” by selling some to his friends.

They are not concerned that the fireworks are illegal in their home community, confident that police won’t be watching for fireworks on a suburban cul-de-sac. “No one worries about it,” White said.

This year, the 20 stands in San Fernando will gross about $500,000 during the authorized sales period, between noon June 28 and midnight tonight, Penman said. The city gets 7%, about $35,000 if his prediction is accurate. That money will be put in a “fireworks fund” used for recreation, park and historic preservation programs, he said.

The stands, some of which expect to do their biggest business today, stock thousands of fireworks in various styles, shapes and packages. The brightly packaged goods at one stand range from a “Flash Ray Gun” for 15 cents to the $99.99 “Big Timer” box crammed with 111 different kinds of fireworks.

‘Butterfly Flowers’

Also being sold are “Butterfly Flowers” and the “Friendship Pagoda,” both of which spin around while giving off sparks, and the “Giant Silver Screamer,” which makes a high-pitched sound.

So numerous are the stands that in some cases customers can look over the offerings at one stand, turn, and spot another stand not far away. Two stands on Truman Street near San Fernando Mission Boulevard are practically side-by-side.

“I don’t worry about competition,” said Ralph Arriola, who helps run a stand operated by the Community Improvement Council of San Fernando. “Everybody builds up their own following over the years.”

Al Mendez of Arleta, who was planning to buy some fireworks for his two sons, said he has been coming to the same street corner to buy fireworks for the last 20 years.

“It’s tradition, I guess,” Mendez said. “All my family comes here.”

Mendez said buying his own fireworks to entertain his family saves him money and the hassle of driving through traffic to a public fireworks display.

No Questions Asked

The merchants say they do not ask customers where they live, and that they do not worry about selling the fireworks to out-of-towners.

“The fireworks have been tested and approved by the state and there’s marginal danger with them,” Arriola said. “When people start modifying them or are careless, then you have a problem.”

“If we didn’t sell them, people would go to Mexico and buy bottle rockets,” which are illegal everywhere in California, said Robert Richards, chairman of the stand run jointly by the Knights of Columbus and the Boy Scouts. “Those are dangerous. Those start fires.”

Arriola said he expects his stand to gross about $25,000. By the time expenses and state sales taxes are paid, the group will make a profit of between $4,000 and $5,000, he said.

The state fire marshal gives the “safe and sane” designation to fireworks that do not explode or shoot into the air. Most merely emit showers of sparks, or spin around.

Such fireworks are legal in numerous communities in Los Angeles County, among them Culver City and Baldwin Park, according to Inspector Mike Pierson of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Legal Since 1949

Penman said the sale of “safe and sane” fireworks has been legal in San Fernando since 1949. Fireworks have been illegal in the City of Los Angeles since 1942.

Ironically, the Los Angeles Fire Department provides fire services to San Fernando, which has adopted all of Los Angeles’ fire regulations except the ban on fireworks.

Within Los Angeles city limits, possessing, discharging or selling fireworks is a misdemeanor punishable by fines ranging from $500 to $1,000 and/or up to six months in jail.

A violation involving a large amount of illegal fireworks, such as bottle rockets and firecrackers, can bring a felony charge punishable by up to one year in prison and/or fines of up to $5,000, according to Inspector Thomas Laski of the Los Angeles City Fire Department.

The crime is a felony if the explosives weigh more than 7,500 grains, Laski said. However, a typical firecracker 1 inches long weighs only .8 grains, he said.

Los Angeles city fire officials have been waging an anti-firecracker campaign for several years, and they say their radio, television and billboard ads have cut injuries and losses.

In 1981, the year before the campaign got under way, the city suffered losses due to fireworks of $2.5 million and about 300 people were injured, Adams said. Last year, the city lost $115,000 with only three people injured, she said.