Fireworks Delay Ignites Complaints in Laguna Niguel

Angry residents telephoned Laguna Niguel Chamber of Commerce officials Wednesday, complaining that their Independence Day spirits plummeted when the organization’s Fourth of July fireworks show started one hour late.

“I think you could say that many people felt frustrated by the delay,” said chamber Manager Julie Sweany.

The Laguna Niguel Chamber sponsored the free fireworks demonstration at Laguna Niguel Regional Park. Fireworks were scheduled for 9 p.m., but did not start until 9:58, Sweany said.

“The chamber is very upset about this, and we’re looking into it,” Sweany said. “Right now, we don’t have all the information, and the reasons (for the delay) are not quite clear.”

The chamber had invited Laguna Niguel residents to the fireworks demonstration, and hundreds turned out for the show.

“I was watching with my children, and so I was among those wondering about the delay,” Sweany said. “Children get tired after a while.”

Gary Romanio, manager of Pyro Spectaculars of Rialto, the commercial exhibitor for the fireworks display, blamed the delay on the Orange County fire marshal’s office, which supervises such public fireworks displays. But Kathleen Cha, a County Fire Department spokeswoman, said the delay was not the fault of the fire marshal’s representative at the scene. She said the delay was because of “of a slow setup” by the exhibitor, which Romanio denied.

Sweany said she was told that “it had to do with safety precautions.”

Laguna Niguel residents weren’t the only ones in the county to be disappointed by Fourth of July fireworks delays. In Fountain Valley, about 60,000 spectators waited in vain for a show that had to be postponed until Saturday because the truck carrying the fireworks was delayed in a freeway traffic snarl north of Los Angeles County.

That same truck carried fireworks for a Los Alamitos display, causing that show to be delayed more than 30 minutes.

Cha, the spokeswoman for the County Fire Department, said that one professional fireworks technician suffered second- and third-degree burns on Tuesday night when a device exploded prematurely at a display at Camino del Avion Junior High in San Juan Capistrano in south Orange County.

She said the technician, whom she identified as Lynn Phillip Hawthorne, 42, was airlifted from the site to UCI Medical Center in Orange.