Some Bay Area cities bucking trend to outlaw all fireworks
A thick layer of fog was draped over San Bruno on Friday, but the fireworks stands set up in the parking lot of the Shops at Tanforan mall boasted boxes with neon text screaming, “Dazzle the crowd!” “Backyard Barrage!” “Peacock tail!” and “Phantom Awestruck.”
With the Fourth of July just days away, business seemed slow at the stalls — but it won’t stay that way for long, vendors said.
“People are always procrastinators,” said 18-year-old Charlene Smith, who was selling fireworks to benefit the San Bruno Rotary Club.
“The first couple days are pretty slow — the third and fourth days, it starts to get hectic,” agreed Bob George, a Rotarian working the
booth.
Fireworks of all kinds are illegal almost everywhere in the Bay Area, but a few cities — San Bruno, Pacifica, Newark, Union City, Dublin, Sebastopol, Rohnert Park, Petaluma and Cloverdale — allow the sale of “safe and sane” pyrotechnics, the kind that are neither projectiles nor explosives. Many of the groups hawking the fireworks do so to help law enforcement offset costs of the holiday or to support local do-good organizations.
In Pacifica, for instance, fireworks are sold by nonprofits and an 8 percent surcharge added to all sales is used to offset public safety costs dealing with the holiday, according to Capt. Joe Spanheimer, a spokesman for the Pacifica Police Department.
Those costs were about $33,000 in 2014 and 2015, police wrote in a 2016 report to the Pacifica City Council.
Just because the oceanside city allows the sale of sparklers, smoke balls and other safe and sane offerings designed to crackle, glitter and flicker, doesn’t mean its problems with illegal fireworks are settled. Police say the issue has gotten explosive at times, pitting neighbor against neighbor.
“Currently, there appears to be a culture in Pacifica, particularly in the southern end of the City, which believes that illegal fireworks are just something that is part of the July 4th celebration,” the police report said. “Community members have reported being harassed by violators and are called ‘snitches’ when they complain about the activity. Community members often call the police to complain about violations, but often don’t want to identify violators.”
Even in cities such as Newark and Pacifica that allow some fireworks to be sold, tracking down the bigger, badder illegal fireworks keeps law enforcement busy in late June and early July.
Several recent busts have seen Bay Area law enforcement agencies confiscate hundreds of pounds of illegal fireworks.
On Monday, Newark police seized over 100 pounds of illicit pyrotechnics from a 21-yearold man, police said.
And although a hundred pounds of fireworks may sound like a lot, those seizures are just a tiny piece of the picture, said Sgt. Ray Kelly of the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.
“In the last week we’re at several thousand pounds, in terms of seizures,” he said. “I’d imagine we’re at close to 5,000 pounds, total.”
That’s pretty normal for this time of year, he said.
“In fact, I'm surprised it’s taken this late into the season,” Kelly said. “Oakland usually leads the charge with the most firework-related violations. But from Oakland all the way down to Fremont, there’s problems in pretty much every community.”
The same problems exist farther inland. In Stockton, where safe and sane fireworks are legal, police confiscated more than 950 pounds of illegal fireworks from a 37-year-old man last Sunday afternoon.
Perhaps the suspect, identified by police as a Stockton resident, was aware that weather forecasters expect the inland areas will be the best places to watch fireworks, with cloudy conditions dominating the whole day in some areas, such as San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, while in the Financial District, the cloud cover will probably start to roll in around 6 p.m.
“The general rule of thumb this time of year is that the farther inland you go, the more likely you will see clear conditions,” said Charles Bell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“Inland areas that are higher elevation, that’d be the place to go,” Bell added. “The marine layer is 2,000 feet, so unless you’re getting up really high, you’re going to have clouds — even in the East Bay, the Santa Clara Valley.
“Of course, it’s very far down the road. But there’s no sign of an offshore event where we’ll get sudden warm weather,” he said.
In San Francisco, where all private fireworks are banned, the annual fireworks bonanza on Pier 39 will start at 9:30 p.m. on Independence Day, fog or no fog.
Luckily, forecasters don’t expect thunderstorms or rain to accompany the clouds, Bell said.
Clouds or no clouds, for the nonprofits selling the fireworks, the hope is that after months of planning the booths, the money they bring in will have an impact that outlasts Tuesday’s spectacle.
“Within hours, everything we’ve sold is up in smoke,” George mused. “Thousands and thousands of dollars. It’s something.”
“Within hours, everything we’ve sold is up in smoke. Thousands and thousands of dollars. It’s something.” Bob George, San Bruno Rotarian