Fewer Fireworks

Last Tuesday, Westminster became the 22nd city in Orange County to ban the sale and use of all fireworks except for public displays. That leaves just six communities--Buena Park, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Orange and Santa Ana--as the last holdouts.

The 22 cities that have enacted the bans are no less patriotic or less supportive of the community organizations that mistakenly sell the so-called “safe and sane” but still dangerous fireworks to raise funds. It is simply that they have realized, as firefighting officials so strongly argue, that the ban reduces the needless fires and injuries that fireworks cause each year.

By joining all the other communities in Southern California that have seen the wisdom of banning fireworks, the six holdouts not only can make the holiday celebration safer but will also make it far easier for their neighbors to enforce the laws against fireworks that are now in force nearly countywide.