Fireworks vendors begin countdown

They’re unfazed by the late afternoon sun baking the blacktop that surrounds the booth they set up Tuesday, the first day to legally sell Fourth of July fireworks this year in Clark County.

Cars roll by in the busy parking lot at the Smith’s shopping plaza near Rancho Drive and Charleston Boulevard. But no one stops.

Since noon, one person has bought fireworks, said Jeff Judd, 39, who manages the stand.

“We don’t expect sales until Friday,” Judd said. Then smiling, he joked: “Unless we get girls out here in bikinis.”

The assorted fireworks lining Judd’s shelves were mainly poppers and sparkler kits. Just about every other pyrotechnic is illegal in the county and cities: firecrackers, roman candles and rockets that shoot into the air.

All local fireworks vendors must be nonprofit, said Judd, describing how the proceeds from his booth will go to his son’s soccer team.

People yearning for the more explosive brand of fireworks to celebrate Independence Day often head to Pahrump or Indian reservations where vendors can legally sell the items for a profit.

During last year’s July 4 weekend, Las Vegas police responded to 744 complaints about fireworks creating disturbances, said Bill Cassell, police spokesman.

In 2009, when July 4 landed on a Saturday, a normally busy day for police, almost 1,200 people complained about disruptive fireworks, Cassell said.

Officers usually will issue warnings and try to talk sense to the people, telling them that they are playing with incendiary devices that can kill, maim and ignite fires, Cassell said.

“If we tried to arrest everyone that’s throwing a firecracker, that’s not going to work very well,” said Cassell, adding that officers would have no time to deal with serious crimes.

Nye County has no codes that prohibit explosive fireworks. As a result, many people make the hourlong drive to Pahrump, buy a slew of explosive items and head back to the Las Vegas Valley to fire them off.

Several years ago, local police would pull over drivers who looked to be transporting unlawful fireworks in trucks and trailers, Cassell said.

Since then, officers have only searched vehicles if they have pulled over the drivers for, say, speeding and they appear to be carrying contraband, he said. But through the holiday weekend various federal agencies will step up enforcement of rules barring fireworks on federal lands, including Lake Mead, Mount Charleston, Red Rock Canyon and Spring Mountains.

That will include running checkpoints near those popular areas and confiscating illegal items, said Stephanie Phillips, deputy forest supervisor for the U.S. Forest Service.

Fireworks are especially hazardous during the hot, dry summer months, Phillips said.

For a time, several agencies teamed up in “saturation patrols” that busted makeshift campsites where revelers partied and set off illegal fireworks, she said, noting that the patrols worked.

“We saw a marked decline in fireworks going off over federal land,” Phillips said.

Contact reporter Scott Wyland at swyland@
reviewjournal.com or 702-455-4519.