LOCAL ELECTIONS : Carson Voters to Decide Whether to Ban Fireworks

Voters in Carson will be asked in November whether the city should ban a traditional Fourth of July feature: fireworks.

The advisory question, placed on the Nov. 6 ballot by the City Council this summer, asks whether the sale of so-called safe and sane fireworks should continue.

Safe and sane fireworks refer to those permitted under state law unless cities or counties ban them. They include sparklers, smoke “snakes,” the cone-shaped fountains that spout multicolored sparks and “party poppers,” which emit paper streamers with a satisfying pop. Nonprofit charitable organizations, which market the fireworks to raise money, are allowed to sell the items from June 28 to July 6.

Proposition F pits the fireworks industry and charity organizations against opponents, especially public safety officials, who are concerned about the potential for fireworks-related fires.

Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale are the other South Bay cities that allow safe and sane fireworks. Most recently, the Lomita City Council prohibited sales and use in 1986 after voters endorsed a similar advisory measure against fireworks.

This past summer, 28 charitable organizations in Carson sold fireworks to raise money for their various programs, netting an average of $4,000 to $5,000 each, according to city officials. Business license and application fees connected with the sales earned the city $4,200.

Fireworks sales “are one of our biggest moneymakers,” said James Marshall of the Carson Elks Lodge. The group raises about $14,000 annually from fireworks sales. The money is used for scholarships, assisting the disabled and funding youth programs.

“The thing is, we wouldn’t be able to do as much as we’d like to” without the fireworks, Marshall said. “My personal feeling is that even if they take all the legal fireworks away, it’s not going to solve the problem. People are still going to bring in illegal fireworks.”

Councilman Michael Mitoma, who wrote the ballot argument in support of banning fireworks, said fireworks supporters “ought to think about the physical tragedies as opposed to economic benefits.”

Mitoma said a neighbor’s house burned five years ago because of a fireworks-related fire, ignited by either an illegal bottle rocket or a sparkler.

Every Fourth of July, Mitoma said, he and his neighbors water down their shake or wooden roofs to prevent a similar occurrence. “It’s ridiculous,” Mitoma said, adding that “even the Boy Scouts have banned fireworks” as a fund-raising source.

From 1984 through the beginning of this month, 50 fireworks-related fires occurred in Carson, according to James Corbett, assistant chief with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, which patrols Carson. Property damage was about $300,000 for this period.

Corbett said that although charitable groups benefit from the sales, fireworks pose “a significant risk of personal injury and property damage to the community as a whole.”

The state fire marshal’s office reports that about 40% of fireworks-related injuries in California last year were caused by safe and sane fireworks, the largest percentage of which were caused by sparklers, Corbett said.

Commenting on the fire-related problems, Marvin Clayton of the Carson Lions Club, said most of that city’s fireworks-related fires are the result of illegal fireworks. At most, he contended, the sparklers account for 10% of fireworks-related fires.

Most residents do not know which fireworks are legal and which aren’t, he said. The confusion will likely result in voters supporting a ban on all types, he said.

“We don’t sell cherry bombs,” Clayton said, referring to the loud, illegal explosives. “People don’t understand that.”

A vote to ban the legal fireworks would be a vote against the programs the Lions support, he asserted.

Councilwoman Kay Calas said the issue involves some ambivalence for her. One the one hand, she said, “I remember when I was a little girl, my sister’s dress caught on fire from playing with a sparkler.” Her sister was not injured, but the image has come back to Calas through the years, sometimes as she has worked the fireworks booths for the various charity organizations that sold them, she said.