I found out today that in our part of the OK panhandle, fireworks are completely illegal. A firework hut went up just out of town recently, and was quickly shut down.
No skin off my nose.
So Mr. CK actually has the evening of the 4th off, so we thought we’d watch fireworks. Except if any town near us is putting on a show, they aren’t telling anyone. Even the podunk town we live in. I don’t know if this is a hijack, or just a rabbit trail, but does your local municipality (if you’re in a small one) do fireworks? It kills me that there’s nothing happening here all day. I grew up where there was the “Old-Fashioned Fourth of July” celebration for everyone. Hayrides, bluegrass bands, the Boy Scouts sold ice cream, picnics and food vendors–pit BBQ, bratwurst, burgers, hot dogs, cakes, name it. We never set off fireworks at home, because the JayCees spent every year’s fundraising on a great show.
This town, nothing. It seems they do one thing all year, and the other 51 weekends are dead.
Yes, but it’s generally not much better than a glorified version of the backyard stuff, plus maybe a dozen or so shells that you can’t get at the consumer level.
I live in the S.F. Bay Area, in a small city directly across the bay from the Golden Gate Bridge. They do fireworks in San Francisco and Berkeley, but it’s often too foggy to see them (especially the ones in S.F.). For some reason, the nearby city of Richmond does theirs on July 3. There’s usually less fog in the area where they shoot theirs off.
Fireworks going off in the middle of a fog bank aren’t worth watching.
Starting last year they allowed ground sparkling fireworks in New Jersey. Before that everything was illegal. There are several giant fireworks stores just over the border in Pennsylvania. Thankfully I’m off so I don’t have to deal with it this year.
As fate would have it, I wound up stopping at this stand yesterday. My younger son was very insulted that our municipal show is on the 3rd so I said I’d buy some stuff for our own show on the 4th.
It is, indeed, a bunch of sparklers but I guess they pack sparklers into a lot of different packages and sizes. No nothing that actually goes boom or flies but various fountains and cones that fire off brightly colored sprays. Perhaps not as cool as the stuff of my youth but not as lame as I had feared. Good enough to amuse a seven year old in the backyard at least.
Don’t remind me. The one time I tried watching the San Francisco fireworks - in 1976 - I couldn’t see a thing because of the fog.
And holding fireworks shows on the 3rd is more common than you might think; Columbus, Ohio has its annual “Red, White, and BOOM” fireworks show every July 3rd. My best guess is, it allows smaller communities to have their own shows on the 4th without people being away to watch the bigger ones.
As RealityChuck stated, NY state legalized some basic fireworks (as long as they don’t leave the ground) but we’re in one of the four counties that outlaws them completely…that being said, we’ve heard fireworks at other times of the year on other occasions…we haven’t been home for the 4th for the last 12 years, so I’m not sure what it is like - we live across the river from the local town, and a little more rural…plus, we’re right next to a county that does allow them, so my guess is the laws are ignored…
Where we go is in NC which has very similar laws, can’t shoot, spin or leave the ground, but the town we are in prohibits everything - beach towns with lotsa wooden houses are not places for idiots with fireworks…but, the towns up and down the OBX have great fireworks that they shoot over the ocean…we have had years where people will shoot lotsa things off on the beach, but it usually depends upon which way the wind blows…
In parts of South Dakota some cities have safe zones where people are allowed to go into and shoot off whatever they like. This works out well because many people or their pets dont like all the noise in their neighborhood plus the police dont have to respond to as many calls.