PORT ANGELES — The City Council voted 4-3 Tuesday night to ban personal fireworks within the city limits.
The new ordinance takes effect beginning in April 2016.
Illegal use of fireworks — either those too dangerous to be legal or those set off before 9 a.m. or after 11 p.m. on the Fourth of July — will continue to be a misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine until the new law takes effect.
Small firework devices still will be allowed.
They include snakes and glow worms, trick noisemakers, party poppers, “booby traps” that are similar to party poppers, snappers, trick matches, cigarette loads and “auto burglar alarms” that consist of a small tubes that whistle or smoke when ignited.
Council members Brad Collins, Sissi Bruch and Cherie Kidd, the former mayor, voted for the new ordinance.
Council members Dan Gase, Lee Whetham and Patrick Downie voted against a ban.
Mayor Dan Di Guilio cast the deciding vote for the ban. The council’s 4-3 vote came after a two-hour hearing during which 26 persons spoke for and against the prohibition; they were split, 13-13.
Those testifying at the hearing for the ban spoke of neighborhoods that had become “war zones,” animals that had to be drugged to withstand the July 3-July 5 holiday cacophony and their own fear of house fires and noise-related ear damage.
Those against the ban spoke of focusing on enforcing existing laws that allow fireworks only 14 hours on July Fourth, of exploring alternatives such as setting up fireworks-lighting zones within the city, of the uselessness of a ban on legal fireworks when illegal fireworks, they said, are the real problem.
Collins, Bruch and Kidd began council discussion by saying they supported a ban.
The concerns of citizens had reached too high a crescendo to ignore, they said.
“It’s a problem that is really disturbing the health, safety and welfare of the community,” Kidd said.
Past city councils had limited the use of fireworks in 1980 and 1999, but noise and other problems have continued, she said.
Whetham suggested an citizens advisory ballot should decide the issue, and he and Downie, the deputy mayor, both said more discussion was needed.
“I think it falls short on what we need to include in it,” Downie said of the ordinance.
Then it was Di Guilio’s turn.
“I seem to be the swing vote here tonight,” he said.
The time for further discussion was over, he said.
Di Guilio said council members already had heard almost three hours of discussion Feb. 17 during the first part of the public hearing on the ordinance and two more hours Tuesday night.
“I look at the ordinance as a better tool for the police to address the problems,” he said.
“We can’t just ignore it and say it’s a problem of illegal fireworks on the [Lower Elwha Klallam] reservation.”
Di Guilio added that council member from Lacey, the city that has a fireworks ban upon which Port Angeles’ new ordinance is based, had said Lacey’s ban works.
He said Port Angeles still has its traditional July Fourth fireworks show sponsored by the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce. And he said he hoped it would grow even larger.
Under the ordinance, licensed fireworks displays will remain legal.
“I don’t know what we can gain by continuing the discussion,” Di Guilio said.
Port Angeles is now the second city on the North Olympic Peninsula to ban personal fireworks.
Port Townsend banned consumer fireworks in 2003.
The Port Angeles ban was proposed by the group Safer 4th of July.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
