LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – As the nation celebrates the Fourth of July, fireworks will light up the night but in Clark County many of them will be illegal. Only “safe and sane” fireworks are allowed.
Metro police have been cracking down on illegal fireworks in the valley, so far this year issuing more than 130 citations. Between the city and county 15,000 pounds of fireworks have been confiscated, more than ever before.
“It just seems like every year the problem continues to get worse,” shared Scott Thompson, Fire Inspector for Las Vegas Fire and Rescue. That despite fines being up this year, at minimum $500 a pop. The City of Las Vegas alone has filled nearly an entire shipping container with the illegal explosives seized.
“I think people just see people doing it and they think it is okay,” Thompson reported.
So, what happens to all those confiscated illegal fireworks? Thompson explained hazardous materials can’t be shipped off to a landfill.
“Fireworks are an explosive so they need to be treated as such. You can’t just dump them. You can’t just blow them up because you can cause injury, you can cause wildland fires. If you are going to destroy them, they have to be at an armory…it is that serious,” Thompson contended.
One 55 gallon drum of hazardous waste can cost $10,000 to dispose of. Clark County and the cities within it have entered an agreement with local wholesalers TNT and Phantom Fireworks and will re-sell everything taken in.
“At the end of the season, they take all the illegal fireworks, and they pay us pennies on the pound…they are taken to a distribution center in a state that does not touch Nevada,” Thompson revealed.
By participating in this program taxpayers are saved tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in disposal costs. The money made also covers future firework enforcement which there is also more of this Fourth of July.
You can make sure you are buying legal fireworks and supporting local nonprofits at the same time by buying from booths within the valley.
The booth in the parking lot of Smiths in Cadence in Henderson is supporting the Pinecrest Cadence Marching Band. They will be open through the Fourth of July until 11:59 p.m.
You can also find fireworks for sale at locations other than TNT and Phantom Fireworks booths, but make sure they have the “safe and sane” label on them.
Thompson suggested always keeping a bucket of water or hose nearby when setting off legal fireworks just in case they spark a fire.
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