Drunken pyros unite! Wichita waving white flag on Fourth of July skyrockets | Opinion

Wichita City Hall is getting ready to bow to the reality of fireworks, that for several nights around the Fourth of July, it’s going to look and sound like Beirut, 1982, around here.

This week, the council took first steps toward an ordinance being proposed by a staff committee that would lift the longtime ban on industrial-strength aerial fireworks in city neighborhoods.

There’s really not much choice. Fireworks that used to be the stuff of municipal shows and fireworks night at the ball park are available in every city around Wichita and in unincorporated Sedgwick County.

When you’re completely surrounded, sometimes the only thing left to do is wave the white flag, like General Cornwallis at Yorktown.

But the new ordinance is not quite ready for the municipal codebook.

As explained by Fire Marshal Chris Dugan in a council workshop, it would be phased in this year and next.

Phase I would:

▪ Allow aerial fireworks from July 1 to July 4. Small-scale “safe and sane” fireworks could be used from June 27 to July 4.

▪ Create a permit process with a $10 fee per location to shoot aerial fireworks.

▪ Keep the current legal fireworks shooting hours of 10 a.m. to midnight, but enforce it more strictly. “Once midnight hits, we would have a zero-tolerance policy for fireworks violators,” Dugan said.

▪ Increase fines for violations to $1,000 for first offense, $1,500 for second offense and $2,000 for third and subsequent offenses.

Phase II, in 2024, would legalize selling of aerial fireworks in the city, set new fees for sellers and put an additional sales tax on purchases at fireworks tents.

One problem with the proposed ordinance is it’s discriminatory.

About a third of Wichitans live in multi-family housing and don’t have any place where they could legally discharge fireworks. The ordinance bans them on all public property, including city streets.

Back in 2018, the council considered setting up some “safe zones” for fireworks on public property, but it never went anywhere.

So ask yourself this: Why is it safe to launch big fireworks from a neighborhood driveway, but not the wide open spaces at Old Town Square or Natftzger Park?

And amateur pyrotechnicians are required to move off the street and do their thing in the driveway, closer to occupied dwellings. Does that make sense?

Higher fines? It was $2,500 five years ago and reduced to $250. The fines had no effect before or after.

But the biggest problem with the fireworks ordinance is that it ignores the biggest problem with fireworks.

Almost every neighborhood in Wichita has “that guy” who spends a couple of thousands on fireworks every year and invites every friend he’s ever had to his annual celebration of patriotic pyromania.

By the time it gets dark enough for fireworks, “that guy” and everybody else at his party is blind-staggering drunk.

It leads to horrifying errors in judgment, like closely examining apparent “duds” that end up exploding in someone’s face, or letting little kids play with stuff that sends them to the emergency room.

My personal view is if you’re an adult and kill, maim or injure yourself being stupid with fireworks, well, take it up with Charles Darwin when you see him.

But if you injure a child, or a neighbor, or set fire to someone’s house or car, or start a brush fire, you should have to take a breathalyzer test. And if you’re drunk, you should have to do jail time.

We do that with drunk drivers who cause accidents. Why should fireworks be any different?

When we’re talking mortars and skyrockets, it is an inherently hazardous activity and it ought to be taken seriously.

As former county commissioner Tim Norton once said of crime in general, “You have to separate the people you’re mad at from the people who are dangerous” when considering where to spend enforcement resources.

That sentiment easily translates to fireworks. Shooting them off when you’re inebriated is the definition of dangerous.

And frankly, we should all care a whole lot more about that than we do whether someone’s making too much noise at five minutes after midnight.