Sales Confined to 4 Communities : 54 Groups Given Permits to Sell ‘Safe, Sane’ Fireworks

The Fourth of July is six days away, but the fireworks have begun exploding in Lawndale after a booster club in a neighboring community was awarded one of the city’s six permits to sell them.

Only three other cities in the South Bay--Inglewood, Hawthorne and Carson--grant permits for civic groups to sell “safe and sane” fireworks before July 4, and all limit the number of permits. Fifty-four permits have been issued. Sales began this weekend in most of the cities.

The permits can translate into a sizable chunk of money for the groups, some of which rely upon pyrotechnic sales as a chief revenue source. Officials from groups that had permits in the past report making $5,000 in less than a week.

Lewis Learnard, secretary of the Harbor City-Lomita Lions, said fireworks had provided his group with about $4,000 annually. But the group was forced to search for other sources after Lomita residents last year voted to outlaw the sale in the city.

“We’re still looking for other ways to raise money,” Learnard said. He said the group sponsored a high school all-star basketball game this year to help make up for the loss but netted only about $600.

Although Inglewood has allowed the same 12 community organizations to operate stands for several years, Carson, Hawthorne and Lawndale use a lottery to issue permits. And the three cities require the groups to have a permanent meeting place within the city.

But a provision of Lawndale’s ordinance allows the City Council to waive the meeting-place requirement if an organization can show that the group must meet outside Lawndale.

That’s what happened in the case of the Hawthorne High School marching band booster club, which got a permit after it told the city it must meet at that high school to accomplish tasks such as taking inventory of musical instruments. About half of the high school students in Lawndale attend Hawthorne High.

After her group did not get a permit, Jerri Young, president of Soroptimist International of Lawndale-South Bay, wrote to Lawndale Mayor Sarann Kruse urging a revamping of the the permit criteria. Young argued that the city should tighten requirements so only groups whose permanent meeting place is within the city can compete for the stands.

“We find ourselves always being one of the first to be asked to support a Lawndale project,” Young said in her letter, “but in the last three years we have been literally left out in the cold when it came to a very profitable fund-raiser such as the fireworks stands.”

Young is also pushing to prohibit organizations with various branches within the city, such as the Boy Scouts, from submitting separate permit applications for the lottery.

“That puts our club at somewhat of a disadvantage,” she said. “If every Little League team applied, that would weigh things against us.”

In response, the City Council has decided to form a committee to review the permit ordinance. The review could take six months, depending on how much--if any--of the ordinance council members decide to change, Asst. City Manager Paul Cone said.