SEQUIM — The Sequim City Council plans to discuss options for banning the sale of fireworks next month.
The talks would come nearly nine years after the city followed an advisory vote to ban the discharge of fireworks in city limits.
Council member Kathy Downer asked for a possible fireworks ban ordinance at the Aug. 12 city council meeting.
“If (people) can’t shoot (fireworks) off in Sequim, I don’t think they should be selling them,” she said in an interview. “It gives them a feeling they can shoot them off.”
At the August meeting, Downer said there are safety concerns about people trying to discharge fireworks in Carrie Blake Community Park, Trinity United Methodist Church and the adjacent Blake property, where it’s not allowed and already very dry.
Former Sequim school board member Jim Stoffer, who attends the church, said during the public comment period that he stopped people who were attempting to discharge fireworks and that the city should consider more signage about its ordinance.
Downer said Sequim police responded to each call for illegal fireworks on July 4 and found they weren’t being discharged in city limits.
Deputy police chief John Southard said in an email in July there were 11 fireworks complaints between 7 p.m. and midnight on July 4, and four complaints were city residents reporting fireworks going off in unincorporated Clallam County, which isn’t illegal on the holiday.
Another complaint was about the city’s fireworks show and the resident not knowing it was the approved show, he said.
Southard added that one resident called multiple times, but when officers responded, no fireworks were going off, or the ones that they found were being set off outside city limits.
“We received voluntary compliance from all parties we contacted who were alleged to be setting of fireworks in city limits,” he said.
Since the ban, officers have said they’ve sought voluntary compliance first.
Sequim Police Department’s enforcement options for fireworks violations, include verbal warnings, seizure of fireworks, referral of criminal charges and/or arrest.
Under the city’s municipal code, residents found illegally discharging fireworks could face a gross misdemeanor fine up to $5,000 or up to 364 days in jail.
Clallam County Fire District 3 reported four small fires over the Fourth of July weekend may have been linked to fireworks in the city of Sequim. Fire district officials said they didn’t respond to any fires linked to fireworks-related calls in unincorporated Clallam County in the Sequim area.
In November 2016, city residents voted 65.6 percent (2,642 votes) in favor of an advisory vote asking the city council to ban the discharge of all commercial fireworks. Council members followed with a unanimous approval of an ordinance that banned the discharge of fireworks in July 2017. A public display was proposed as an alternative.
Fireworks booths are allowed in city limits from June 28 through July 5, with one booth allowed per 1,500 people who live in the city.
According to an application for a booth, “the city fire marshal shall have the inherent authority to prohibit the use and sale of fireworks at any time when he or she deems such sale and use to be a danger to the public health, safety and welfare, and specifically when he or she deems the weather conditions to be such that there is an unacceptably increased risk of fire.”
During the first discussions about banning fireworks in summer 2016, city council members didn’t want to negatively impact nonprofits who operate fireworks booths for various causes.
City staff advised against allowing fireworks sales at the time.
Downer said she’s in favor of small businesses but said the booths aren’t entities from within the city. She added that the fireworks this year were the “loudest she’d ever heard in Sequim” and sounded like a “war zone.”
She said the public fireworks display is safer during times of drought, and the Sunshine Festival’s drone show is a quieter alternative.
Along with discussing an ordinance to ban the sale of fireworks, Downer wants to have a discussion about more signage in city parks.
For future city council agendas, visit sequimwa.gov.
________
Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
