Declaration of Independence: Groups Sell Fireworks Despite Fire Warning : Palmdale: The holiday for 28 civic-minded clubs means profits for scholarships. But Fourth of July for firefighters is their busiest day of year.

Despite stern warnings from county fire officials who view the area as a tinderbox for deadly brush fires, fireworks sales are big business in this high desert city.

County fire officials say high winds, scorching heat and dried brush in open fields across the city make it one of the worst possible places for people to be allowed to set off fireworks, but city residents argue that everything is dangerous, and shooting off fireworks is an inalienable expression of their independence.

Beyond the fierce independence that some residents say pushes them to defy warnings from county fire officials, there is another factor that fosters widespread acceptance of the practice of fireworks sales here.

Money. Lots and lots of money.

In Los Angeles County alone, there are more than 300 stands, most located in the San Gabriel Valley, Compton and Carson. In Alhambra, where the county’s largest fireworks stands operate, one organization reported sales in excess of $50,000 last year, said Capt. Steve Valenzuela, a Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman.

In Palmdale last year, about two dozen nonprofit groups earned more than $200,000 selling fireworks between the last weeks in June and July 4, said Steve Buffalo, a city spokesman.

Across the state, there were nearly 2,300 business licenses issued for fireworks sales this year, said Hugh Council, chief of the state fire marshal’s technical service division.

Along a four-mile stretch of Palmdale Avenue, the city’s main thoroughfare, there are nearly a half-dozen fireworks stands run by such civic-minded organizations as the Elks and Lions clubs. Altogether, there are 28 organizations with 32 booths all over the city, Buffalo said.

The state limits sales permits to nonprofit organizations that use the proceeds to provide scholarships for college-bound teen-agers, sponsor Little League baseball and softball programs and scores of other community services.

“You can’t raise this kind of money with cake walks,” said Mary Croxen, a volunteer worker at the Emblem Club’s fireworks stand at the corner of Palmdale Avenue and Sierra Highway, across the street from City Hall.

From last year’s proceeds, Croxen’s organization was able to give $6,000 in college scholarships to local high school seniors, and sponsor many other community activities, Croxen said. The Elks Club lists 27 community organizations that benefited from fireworks sales.

Although the city has allowed fireworks sales since 1963, according to the city clerk’s office, the practice became so controversial that the City Council placed a measure on the April, 1992, election ballot to settle the matter.

The vote attracted the attention of the state’s two largest distributors of state-approved fireworks, and through a lobbyist, campaigned hard, pumping in $34,000 to support its passage, though it hardly seemed necessary.

The measure passed by a 2 to 1 margin, making Palmdale the only city in north Los Angeles County to allow fireworks sales. Across the county, 37 of 88 cities allow the sale of state-approved fireworks. Residents in neighboring Acton also appealed to the city of Palmdale to ban fireworks sales to halt their use in their own community.

“Well, here people like fireworks, and that’s obvious from the public vote,” Buffalo said.

Indeed, some Palmdale residents say fireworks and the Fourth of July are inseparable activities, and as long as they are used in a “safe and sane” manner, as the state law categorizes them, there are no problems.

“What’s the Fourth of July without fireworks?” asked Maureen Horenziak, as she peered through the meshed wire at dozens of items at the Emblem Club stand with her two young sons.

At the local grocery store up the street, Tony Gardoni, a 41-year-old electrician, says much the same.

“Fourth of July fireworks are traditional,” he said. “Why shouldn’t we be able to keep them?”

Dennis Revell, a lobbyist for Freedom Fireworks and American West Marketing, the state’s two largest fireworks distributors, encourages the use of state-approved fireworks and works year-round to draw a line between his clients’ products and such dangerous illegal products as M-80s, cherry bombs and firecrackers, which are banned in the state. Fireworks companies drastically altered their approach in the late 1980s as business permits issued by state fire marshals dipped nearly one-third from a peak of 2,900 permits in 1986 to about 2,000 three years later. The drop-off reflected the growing safety concerns that led some local governments to ban fireworks sales, Council said.

By 1991, industry officials were proposing bans on such items as metal rod sparklers, which fire officials say pose a fire risk because the rods remain hot.

“We entered the market in 1988, and felt like we should work hand-in-hand with fire services,” said Tad Trout, vice president of American West Marketing Inc. The Santa Ana company is a unit of American Importers Inc. of Florence, Ala., the nation’s largest fireworks distributors.

“We’re proud of our products and recognized when we first got into the California market that there was confusion between state-approved and illegal fireworks,” Trout said.

Today, fireworks companies also sponsor public service announcements and distribute pamphlets, brochures and other educational guides in public schools across the state. One of the commercials features former President Ronald Reagan cautioning safe use of the devices.

Revell also is quick to point a finger at places such as Nye County, Nev., which sells illegal fireworks that often find their way back to California cities.

In spite of the industry’s efforts to win them over, most local and state firefighters still don’t make the distinction between safe and unsafe fireworks. The Fourth of July is their busiest day of the year.

In 1992, 76 fires attributed to fireworks caused $1.8-million damage in Los Angeles County, Valenzuela said. The worst, an East Los Angeles fire, caused more than $1 million damage, he said.

Also, last year, 90 people were injured in fireworks-related accidents, more than four times the number in any other California county. And with last winter’s heavy rains, Valenzuela describes this summer as particularly dangerous.

“On the Fourth of July, we can’t track where fireworks are being used to make sure they are used in a safe area, and we don’t have the ability to monitor how, where or who will use them,” Valenzuela said.

Horace Benoit is one Palmdale resident who did not vote to allow the sale of fireworks and will not be holding a private fireworks display at his home. Two years ago on July 4, his home almost caught fire when fireworks landed on his roof.

“It came from the block behind our house, said Benoit, 75, who had a ladder leaning against his house and a fire hose handy.

“I’m going to do the same thing this year, and get someone who can climb up the ladder just in case,” said Benoit, who has suffered a stroke since the incident .

* FIRE IN THE SKY

A behind-the-scenes look at fireworks extravaganzas. B2