Voters to Decide on Proposal to Outlaw Anaheim Fireworks

Reversing a longstanding position, the Anaheim City Council voted Tuesday to put a measure to ban the use of all fireworks before the city electorate in November.

The decision, which came less than two weeks after a disastrous, fireworks-related blaze, was a personal victory for Councilwoman Miriam Kaywood, who has fought to put such a measure on the municipal ballot for several years.

Councilman E. LLewellyn Overholt Jr., who until recently opposed any ban on legal fireworks, said he changed his mind after the $2.2-million fire at an Anaheim apartment complex July 3. Overholt was the key third vote necessary to place the issue on the ballot. Mayor Donald R. Roth and Mayor Pro Tem Irv Pickler agreed to make the vote unanimous.

Several who spoke at the afternoon public hearing mentioned the fast-spreading blaze at the Casa de Valencia apartments, which left dozens homeless after it gutted about 40 units and damaged 30 more.

Of 100 or so residents at the afternoon hearing, about half raised their hands, indicating that they favored a ban. Many opponents were from nonprofit groups that benefit from sales of legal fireworks at stands that dot the city on the days preceding July 4. Also present was a representative of Pyrotronics Corp., an Anaheim company that manufactures the Red Devil brand of legal fireworks.

In speaking for the ban, resident Hertha MacLachlan said that because of fireworks hazards, “for the last two years, I have not left my home on the Fourth.”

Those who spoke in favor of fireworks pointed out that it was illegal fireworks--and not the legal, so-called “safe and sane” variety--that caused the July 3 fire. A report released by city fire officials last week said the blaze spread from an illegal bottle rocket that landed on a wood-shingle roof. Police and fire officials found both illegal and legal fireworks that had been altered in an area near the fire scene.

“Safe-and-sane (fireworks) frankly are not very exciting. . . . What makes them exciting is when you alter them and they go up in the air,” Deputy City Manager-Fire Chief Bob Simpson told the council.

Simpson cited a report by the state Fire Chiefs’ Assn. and state Firemen’s Assn. that the use of all fireworks decreases in municipalities that ban legal fireworks. Simpson also said that 30% of all fireworks-related injuries are caused by sparklers, a legal, often hand-held, firework.

Opponents of the ban maintained that a ban on fireworks would instead encourage black-market sales of the more dangerous illegal ones.

Nonprofit groups that sell legal fireworks say they sell them only to adults and advise the buyers of proper ways to handle them. To take away the sales would put a crimp on their money-raising ventures, they said.

“I think we have in this country a tremendous thing called free enterprise,” said Jerry Reeves, Loara High School band booster vice president. If people didn’t want fireworks, they wouldn’t buy them, Reeves said, adding that annual sales generate about $3,000 for the band boosters.

As they did last week, council members debated whether to vote on the issue themselves or let residents decide. After hearing speakers for more than an hour, the council opted to place the fireworks matter on the ballot. If approved, any changes or revocation of the new law would have to be done through another ballot vote, City Atty. Jack L. White said.

Even if a majority of residents vote to ban all fireworks on Nov. 4, such a law would not affect such professional pyrotechnic displays as the nightly shows at Disneyland.