PORT ANGELES — Fireworks fans in the city have one more Fourth of July to legally set off their own pyrotechnics now that the city has become the second on the North Olympic Peninsula to approve a ban.
The City Council decided Tuesday night to ban personal fireworks — and, in effect, the stands that sell them — in a 4-3 decision that came down to Mayor Dan Di Guilio’s vote.
Port Townsend banned consumer fireworks in 2003.
“I would not be surprised to see some sort of last hurrah,” Port Angeles Police Chief Terry Gallagher said Wednesday.
Under state law, the Port Angeles prohibition will take effect April 8, 2016, or 30 days plus one year after it is published in the Peninsula Daily News, City Attorney Bill Bloor said Wednesday.
The ban includes Ediz Hook, a traditional and popular fireworks site.
Until the new law takes effect, illegal use of fireworks — 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.
“The obligation on citizens to respect the law has not changed,” Gallagher said.
“What also has not changed is the enforcement difficulties.
“When you have several hundred people who choose not to [obey the law], it makes it very difficult for a small-town police department.”
Small firework devices such as snakes and trick noisemakers still will be allowed under the new law.
Council members Brad Collins, Sissi Bruch and Cherie Kidd, the former mayor, voted for the new ordinance.
Councilmen Dan Gase, Lee Whetham and Patrick Downie voted against it.
Di Guilio cast the deciding vote for the ban.
The council’s 4-3 vote came after a two-hour hearing during which 26 people spoke for and against the prohibition, often emotionally; they were split 13-13.
Those for the ban spoke of neighborhoods that had become “war zones,” animals that had to be drugged to withstand the July 3-5 cacophony and their fear of house fires and noise-related ear damage.
“Some safe and sane, or legal, fireworks are not that much different from illegal fireworks,” one woman, whose name was not available, said at the hearing.
“When everything is contraband, it’s going to be much easier to enforce.”
Those against the ban spoke of focusing on enforcing existing laws, of exploring alternatives such as setting up fireworks-lighting zones within the city and of the impact on fundraising efforts by nonprofit groups.
The prohibition “will burden the system with more laws that can’t be enforced,” said a woman whose name was not available.
“Meager monetary funds should be spent on more pressing issues.”
Collins, Bruch and Kidd began council discussion by saying they supported a ban.
“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 that a citizens advisory ballot question 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.
Di Guilio said council members already had heard almost five hours of testimony during the hearing that began Feb. 17 and continued Tuesday night.
“I don’t know what we can gain by continuing the discussion,” he said.
Port Angeles based its ban on that in Lacey.
Di Guilio said a council member from Lacey had said the city’s ban works.
“I look at the ordinance as a better tool for the police to address the problems,” he said.
Port Angeles still has its traditional July Fourth public fireworks show sponsored by the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce, Di Guilio added.
He said he hoped it would grow even larger.
Under the ordinance, licensed fireworks displays will remain legal.
The Port Angeles ban was proposed by the group Safer 4th of July.
“I’ve been working six hours a day for six months straight, and I’m exhausted,” group organizer Jan Butler said Wednesday.
Butler had accented her testimony at the hearing by displaying a photo of her dead blue-headed parrot, Mr. Bea, a pet she had had for 28 years.
Butler said Wednesday the parrot died in 2006 after her neighbors’ barrage of July Fourth fireworks.
“I would think our group would try to assist with ideas on how to educate the public and finding more alternatives we could do downtown during the Fourth of July that are fun without having things that burn and smoke and [give off] pollution,” she said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
