July 4 Is a Blast in Many Ways

A Fourth of July bottle-rocket blaze last year left 94 apartments destroyed and 130 people homeless and prompted the outlawing of so-called “safe-and-sane” fireworks in Anaheim--headquarters of the nation’s most active pyrotechnics firm. Damage totaled $2.5 million.

In Huntington Beach, one-fourth of 11,000 residents responding to a Fire Department survey said that either they or a family member had been the victim of a fireworks emergency--be it injury or fire. Two-thirds of them supported a fireworks ban.

After studying the use of “safe-and-sane” fireworks, the Orange County Grand Jury last month concluded that there is a “significant decrease” in property damage and injuries where the devices are banned, and jurors urged county supervisors and mayors to put the fireworks question to the voters by summer’s end.

Some have already done so. Other communities are considering it. Eleven of Orange County’s 26 cities have banned sales and use of fireworks. About half of them have done so since the 1986 Fourth of July season.

As they face their busiest week of the year, fire officials say they are seeing a trend toward stricter community regulation of fireworks. It has been prompted, they say, by the Anaheim inferno and the 16 injuries last year in Orange County--second statewide only to injuries in Los Angeles County. According to the grand jury report, safe-and-sane fireworks were blamed for half of the county’s 164 fireworks-triggered fires, which caused a total of $2.7 million in damage over a 10-day period beginning June 27, 1986.

“I’m not against fireworks; I am against burning down Southern California,” said Fullerton Fire Chief Ron Coleman, who has called for countywide regulation on use of fireworks. Fullerton still permits the sale and use of safe-and-sane fireworks.

Some Are All Right

“I honestly believe that a family man who takes his children to the end of the cul de sac and sets off safe-and-sane fireworks in a controlled environment shouldn’t have to suffer for others,” Coleman said.

“But when some blithering idiot gets a bunch of beer under his belt, and throws a Ground Flower into a crowd of people--a safe-and-sane firework, I might add--you’ve got a problem that threatens the safety of all. It’s a decision the community has to make, though.”

Firefighters warn that an extremely dry fire season, coupled with the checkerboard pattern created by each city with its own rules on the discharge of fireworks, may spell confusion and danger this weekend.

“The most important thing is to light all fireworks away from houses, dried grass and all flammable materials--and do it on pavement,” warned Orange County Fire Department Capt. Patrick MacIntosh. “People should check to make sure fireworks are even permitted in their city.”

Fireworks have been outlawed in Anaheim, Brea, Irvine, Laguna Beach, La Habra, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Newport Beach, Seal Beach, Tustin and Yorba Linda.

Tabled Fireworks Ban

Despite public sentiment running 2 to 1 in favor of a fireworks ban in Huntington Beach, the county’s largest beach city, the City Council on May 20 tabled the issue until July 6.

The postponement dismayed Huntington Beach Fire Chief Raymond Picard, who is concerned by the threat of a Fourth of July disaster in a city with “four- and five-square-mile stretches of nothing but (wooden) shake shingle homes.”

Picard blamed the council’s postponement on “a special interest group that is creating enough political pressure . . . to allow the minority to outweigh the majority.” He cited as one example a Huntington Beach church, SS. Simon and Jude, which operates one of the city’s 26 fireworks stands and lobbied against the proposed ban.

But several other cities, where councils are facing rising liability insurance costs in the leaner fiscal year ahead, are bucking the political pressure from Little League organizations, churches and other community groups, which historically have relied on fireworks sales to bankroll their nonprofit activities.

Some of those groups have claimed that it is not the fireworks but the user who causes injuries and property damage.

They’re Out for Scouts

But the Boy Scouts of America has forbidden its local groups from operating fireworks stands--once one of its chief moneymakers--or even using the devices, opting for alternative fund-raising campaigns. In Orange County, home to 70,000 Scouts, $50,000 in popcorn was sold this year instead, a spokesman said.

Even so, outlawing fireworks has not prevented Fourth of July troubles.

In Newport Beach, a carpet of broken glass along several blocks of shorefront road and 159 arrests marked July 4, 1986. One officer was injured as a wall of youths tossed bottles and stormed the Balboa Peninsula that night. As a result, roadblocks will be set up in that area this weekend; a 10 p.m. curfew, which the American Civil Liberties Union has decried as unconstitutional, will be enforced in an effort to prevent a repeat of the riot, and 200 police officers will patrol the city, including some borrowed from other departments.

Taking into account Newport Beach’s harbor, home of the largest private boat marina in the country, property damage alone could be devastating, police spokesman Kent Stoddard said. “It’s more of a police problem than a fireworks problem,” he added.

Newport Beach police will close the areas bordered by West Coast Highway, West Balboa Boulevard, Prospect Street, 32nd Street and the beach to all vehicles on July 4 between 6 p.m. and 3 a.m. the following day, effectively shutting off traffic to the Balboa Peninsula. The 10 p.m. curfew will be in effect nightly for people under 18 years old.

“We don’t want to keep people out of town,” Stoddard said, “but we want to enforce the law. It would be a last-resort situation, like a state of emergency, that we would institute a citywide curfew.”

Gunfire Is a Problem

In Santa Ana, the county’s second largest city, police have found that guns are as big a concern as fireworks.

Police have issued a bulletin and circulated flyers throughout Santa Ana in an effort to curb the illegal discharge of firearms that on most major holidays rings through pockets of the city. More than 100 calls of random gunfire and thousands of dollars in property damage were received last New Year’s Eve, and city officials have attempted to stem the problem since.

But fireworks, which are legal in Santa Ana, remain a concern to some. City Councilman John Acosta has said he will propose an ordinance banning fireworks at Monday night’s council meeting.

And In San Juan Capistrano, city officials have scheduled a ballot measure on the fireworks question for April 8, 1988.

But it is all semantics to Chris Toavs.

Surrounded by eight friends on skateboards at a Costa Mesa fireworks stand on a recent night, the 16-year-old Anaheim high school senior peered through a metal screen at a smorgasbord of Flashers, Smokeballs, Killer Bees and others of the safe-and-sane ilk. Snorting with disgust, the teen-ager declared them “totally wimpy.”

Although he bought some Piccolo Pete screamers from the Red Devil stand, the proceeds of which will benefit youth soccer teams, Chris ticked off a list of what he really wanted--all of it illegal from here to the Mexican border.

“Let’s see, I’d like some cherry bombs, lady fingers, bottle rockets, M-80s, M-100s--anything that will make people mad at night,” he explained. “Late at night, especially. I think it’s stupid to destroy things, though. That’s not cool.”

Fireworks fires and dollar losses June 27 through July 6, 1986

Legal Illegal Causes City Fires fireworks fireworks unknown Dollar loss +Anaheim 8 1 7 - $2,500,000 ++Brea 2 - 2 - 100,100 +++Buena Park 3 3 - - 50 +++Costa Mesa 10 4 5 1 1,600 +++Cypress 2 2 - - 25 +++Fountain Valley - - - - - +++Fullerton 30 10 14 6 9,500 +++Garden Grove 6 3 2 1 1,000 +++Huntington Beach 14 10 - 4 935 +Irvine 8 2 4 2 1,050 ++Laguna Beach 2 - 2 - - +La Habra 2 - - 2 - +La Palma 1 1 - - 25 +Los Alamitos 1 1 - - - ++Newport Beach 5 - 3 2 1,000 +++Orange 4 1 3 - 15,000 +++Placentia 1 1 - - 1,500 +++San Clemente 4 2 1 1 - +++San Juan Capistrano 2 2 - - - +++Santa Ana 19 14 1 4 7,000 +Seal Beach - - - - - +++Stanton 1 - - 1 - +++Tustin 2 - 1 1 70,010 +++Villa Park 1 1 - - 75 +++Westminster 9 1 1 7 1,650 +Yorba Linda 7 - 7 - 300 Unincorporated 20 7 13 - 7,680 TOTAL 164 66 66 32 $2,718,500

Source: Orange County Fire Department

+ Fireworks banned since July 4, 1986 ++Fireworks ban enacted before July, 1986 +++Sale of “safe and sane” fireworks legal in these communities, including unincorporated areas.*