The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Police: Fireworks complaints soaring
Bridgeport City Council member Marcus Brown has been watching a spectacular fireworks display from his balcony on Park Avenue every night for the past two weeks.
It’s not a welcome sight, he said as his phone is ringing with fireworks complaints and the loud bangs are going off well into the early-morning hours.
“They are going off every day,” Brown said. “The other day, I didn’t hear any so I thought maybe it had quieted down, but then it started at 11 p.m. and didn’t stop. You’d think they’d run out of fireworks.”
Brown and city officials are now setting up a hotline for residents to call when they hear or see illegal fireworks activity, he said.
“This year has been the most fireworks that I’ve seen in a long time,” Brown said. “The fireworks that shoot in the air, you can’t get them here, so I don’t know if there is illegal selling going on or people are driving to New Hampshire or South Carolina to get them.”
The fireworks have become a nightly nuisance, angering sleep-deprived residents and alarming elected officials.
All of them want to know: Why the fascination with fireworks, and where is everybody getting the goods?
“I had that same question,” said Julie L. Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association.
Theories range from coordinated efforts to blame those protesting police brutality to bored people blowing off steam following coronavirus lockdowns. Most states allow at least some types of consumer fireworks, making them
difficult to contain in places like Connecticut where they’re banned because people can drive a couple of hours away to buy them legally.
Local officials say the frequency is increasing as July 4 approaches.
Bridgeport police responded to 264 fireworks calls between May 1 and June 24 compared with 112 complaints between May 1 and July 31 last year, according to data provided by Scott Appleby, the city’s director of emergency communications and emergency management.
In Norwalk, police received 132 fireworks complaints
between June 1 and June 24, Lt. Jared Zwickler said. That’s 116 more complaints compared with the same period last year when the department received just 16 calls.
Some of the complaints have stemmed from fountains and sparklers, which are legal in Connecticut, Zwickler said.
Connecticut law and the city’s code do not allow for fireworks set off by nonprofessional, non-licensed users. Norwalk’s city ordinance on fireworks requires any displays — which need a license from the city’s fire chief to be allowed — to end by 10 p.m. State law does not classify fountains and sparklers as fireworks.
“We have seen an uptick in fireworks since the beginning of June, similar to other towns,” Zwickler said. “We have not made any arrests or issued any citations.”
Norwalk Mayor Harry Rilling said the police department is using extra officers to monitor complaints, but it’s difficult to catch people in the act, as many callers don’t know the exact address where the fireworks are being set off. Many people stop their displays when they see police coming, also making it difficult to pinpoint the source.
“This happens every time this year,” Rilling said. “It’s unfortunate there are people who don’t obey the law. The fireworks we’re hearing are clearly a violation of Connecticut law. They’re not the kind you buy from the local gas station.”
Police in Fairfield issued a stern warning last week on Facebook about the illegal use of fireworks after a marsh blaze was ignited last weekend that injured three firefighters and stopped Metro-North trains in the area.
Neighbors reported hearing fireworks minutes before the blaze was spotted behind a woman’s property, firefighters said. The fire spread across a large area of marsh near a portion of the Metro-North railroad tracks, reports said.
In Hartford, police said they have been receiving more than 200 calls a day about fireworks.
Hamden police are increasing patrols and will issue a mandatory court date for those who are using illegal fireworks, Capt. Ronald Smith said. The department has responded to 63 fireworks-related complaints since April 29, representing a “vast increase” in the past two months, Smith said.
State police have a hard time keeping track of the exact number of fireworks complaints since the calls can come in as potential shootings, suspicious activity or other disturbances, Trooper Josue Dorelus said.
But he does know the complaints are coming from
rural towns that are covered by resident troopers as well as more populated areas.
“The complaints are pretty much similar across the board,” Dorelus said.
‘Sales are off the hook’
Many Fourth of July celebrations will be smaller or eliminated entirely because of coronavirus restrictions. Yet the business of fireworks is booming, with some retailers reporting 200 percent increases from the same time last year, according to Heckman, who heads the American Pyrotechnics Association.
Her industry had high hopes for 2020, with July 4 falling on a Saturday. Then came the pandemic and its closures and cancellations, leaving fireworks retailers worried they wouldn’t be able to scratch out much of a sales season.
Those fears have gone up in smoke.
“Sales are off the hook right now. We’re seeing this anomaly in use,” Heckman said. “What’s concerning to us is this usage in cities where consumer fireworks are not legal to use.”
Police have the same concern.
“The number of locations has increased and the frequency in the prior known locations has also increased,” Stamford Police Capt. Sue Brethauer said. “It used to be on weekends and now they are going off every
night.”
The problem, Brethauer said, is that residents rarely provide a specific address when calling in a fireworks complaint and the noise has usually stopped by the time police have arrived.
“Fireworks are like a gunshot,” she said. “Ninetynine percent of the time people call and say it’s happening in their neighborhood, but people aren’t saying it’s coming from a particular address.”
Theories abound for why fireworks have become so popular.
Pyrotechnics expert Mike Tockstein, who has directed hundreds of professional fireworks shows, thinks there’s an easy explanation: The upcoming holiday and a nation filled with young people fed up with quarantines.
“I’ve heard a lot of conspiracy theories, and none of them are based in logic or data or facts,” said Tockstein, owner of Pyrotechnic Innovations, a Californiabased company that trains fireworks professionals.
“Fireworks are used across the entire country for a full month leading up to the Fourth of July,” he said. “There is a slight uptick, but I don’t think it’s anything more than people are stuck at home and hey, look, fireworks are available.”