CARSON : Voters to Determine Fate of Fireworks

Voters will decide the future of Fourth of July fireworks in the April election, the City Council has decided.

Prompted by the concerns of fire safety officials, the council voted unanimously to bring the issue up for a vote. Officials also said that, whatever the outcome, they will abide by it.

That hasn’t always been the case: In a 1991 advisory ballot measure, voters rejected fireworks, but city officials never changed the law to ban them. A poll taken by the city before the ballot measure also showed that most people in Carson didn’t want the noisy, smoky pyrotechnics in their city.

But city codes still allow fireworks to be sold by authorized groups between June 28 and midnight July 4.

Last week, Los Angeles County Fire Department officials again asked Carson to join other South Bay cities in banning fireworks. Only Carson, Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale allow fireworks to be sold, fire officials said.

Some nonprofit groups support fireworks sales because of the money they raise. City figures indicate that 27 nonprofit organizations sold more than $337,000 worth of fireworks last Fourth of July.