Stanton Gives Initial OK to Fireworks Sale for 2000 Blast
Stanton moved one step closer this week to seeing 1999 out with a bang, or so said City Council members as they voted 4 to 1 in preliminary favor of an ordinance to allow fireworks during New Year’s celebrations in 2000.
“We’re going to take the celebration to the neighborhoods,” Mayor David John Shawver said. “We were looking at this as a safety measure and a practical one. By us legalizing fireworks, we hope it will be an alternative to shooting off guns at that midnight hour. Hopefully, we will be able to dissuade people from using guns.”
The City Council will hold a public hearing on the ordinance in two weeks before taking a final vote.
If Stanton approves the plan, the city would become the first in the state to take advantage of a one-time-only California law that permits the sale of “safe and sane” fireworks from Dec. 26, 1999, to Jan. 1, 2000.
Councilman Brian Donahue, who is also on the Orange County Fire Authority’s board of directors, cast the dissenting vote Tuesday, citing concerns about accidents.
“The Fire Authority already has their hands full on New Year’s,” he said. “Why compound it with more injuries and accidents?”
Stanton is one of five Orange County cities that allow fireworks sales for the Fourth of July. It started the tradition five years ago.
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