Aerial fireworks are illegal on Oahu. Period.
But you wouldn’t know it on New Year’s Eve.
The video below, borrowed from YouTube, is pretty representative of the insanity.
As another person commented on Instagram, “100% Local! 100% Illegal!”
Someone commenting here yesterday had a couple of straightforward questions.
So, um, did a single person get cited for illegal fireworks, and did a single car get towed for stopping on H1 to watch, as HPD threatened? And did a single news outlet even bother to ask?
Well, I don’t know about fireworks citations. But there were no arrests for fireworks violations between 5 p.m. on New Year’s Eve and 5 a.m. on January 1. I could check that because arrest logs are public information and are regularly posted by the Honolulu Police Department.
There was one fireworks arrest in Waipahu just after 9 p.m. on Friday, December 30, and another on Hoawa Street in McCully just after 5 a.m. on Saturday, December 31.
There were quite a few arrests for alcohol or drug impaired driving, disorderly conduct, terroristic threatening, and other forms of mayhem. But no others related to the ubiquitous illegal fireworks.
There may have been additional citations issued, but I don’t know how to find those, and they might not be filed in a timely fashion anyway.
So that’s it as far as arrests go.
This has to rank at the top of known crimes that are blatantly committed and uniformly tolerated by those who would otherwise be responsible for enforcing the law.
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When the council was initially discussing a ban on fireworks, a young woman testified that it was okay for her to carry a gun but not okay to use a sparkler under the proposed bill, which subsequently became law. Similar to Prohibition, this ban isn’t working.
And, similar to Prohibition, criminal cartels are getting rich and well established distributing the illegal goods that everyone wants.
Yes. Fireworks ban just doesn’t work. We need to re-legalize them and move on.
See: https://www.pritchettcartoons.com/fworks.htm
Good one!
It seems worse now than it was when just aerials were banned.
Next door neighbor was cited for lighting firecrackers prior to the allowed hours of 9a to 1a. They didn’t write him up for the illegal aerials, although he was blowing those off too. I guess they have to see you do it. One of the neighbors complained.
Oops, meant 9p.
They should not lift the prohibition on aerial fireworks, etc., but the only practical way of making the ban effective is to choke off the source of fireworks. Stop them coming in, and arrest the dealers and sellers. Can’t stop the people shooting off the aerials because the police have to catch them in the act. That’s almost impossible to enforce. Stop the fireworks coming in and make it unprofitable to sell them. Gotta stop it at the choke point.
As we know, being a “LEO” doesn’t make one a law abiding citizen. It’s just a job for so many of them.
Therefore I don’t place any hope that chokepoints will even matter when you potentially have HPD, Sheriffs, DHS/ICE all in on the gravy train along with their braddahs in the stevedore unions.
I’ll just add to this with the latest…
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2023/01/04/corrections-officer-suspected-after-major-fireworks-bust-oahu-jail/
Rescue helos can’t even save people on NYE because of the aerials. Heaven forbid there’s any massive pileup on the freeway from rubbernecking that requires air rescue to fly someone to a trauma center.
Every year there is a brief fuss about this, some mostly silly ideas get tossed around, nothing actually happens, and it all soon gets forgotten about till the next year. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Intercepting the supply of illegal fireworks is much easier said than done, and would require an enormous commitment of resources and cause cargo-delaying searches, etc., that just aren’t worth it.
Busting people for lighting off fireworks, and enforcing penalties, also sucks up lots of resources that are better spent on preventing and arresting drunk drivers, thieves, and those engaged in various forms of mayhem.
The real problem was identified above: the attitude that illegal fireworks use is “100% local” and therefore should not be expected to change. That attitude is at the root of many of Hawaii’s problems and feeds a debilitating culture of mediocrity, dependency, and penchant for deflecting personal responsibility and expecting someone else to clean up a mess. Not everyone has that attitude, of course, but it’s prevalent enough to do plenty of damage.
What would happen if top officials and well-known personalties started publicly and vehemently admonishing that illegal fireworks cause lots of problems, divert public safety resources, and needlessly create deadly danger, and that some traditions are harmful and need to evolve, and that it’s okay to say that to family, friends, and neighbors, just like it’s okay, and even compassionate and responsible, to be intolerant of drunk driving?
We don’t really know, since it doesn’t happen.
Perfectly stated, Mystified.
With so many people in Hawaii buying Skyrockets, why don’t the City & State Governments set up a reward program to Arrest and Prosecute shippers, distributors,s and sellers of illegal fireworks?
Rather than spend money on a robotic dog, how about HPD buying some drones to pinpoint locations and cite the homeowners? They might be able to get the information by flying above the top height of the aerials.
https://altigator.com/en/aerial-uav-surveillance-with-infrared-and-hd-video-cameras-and-zoom/ This is the type of drone that the Honolulu City Council should buy for HPD. Because Hawaii Fireworks Laws allow the police to make arrests because skyrockets were shot from a person’s home. This drone can be linked to a system of maps and has infrared zoom cameras will make it a lot easier to prosecute property owners. The city would also need to change its Fireworks law that doesn’t allow drones.
Probably too many drones would be buzzing over too many connected peoples’ homes. Dat’s why HPD no get.
There are certainly a lot of stressors “bomb-arding” the middle class. Allowing fireworks-for-profit is just another addition to a long list of assaults meant to compromise our creature comforts.
There is no reason can’t ban all but commercial displays, except political will been bought and paid for.
Many are sent in the mail. Purchased on mainland Indian reservations. And sent here.
Breaking story today. Fireworks mailed to prison from Las Vegas many Indian reservations nearby sell legally. This is how they get here. Let’s do reporting on that.
In other cheerful holiday news, Honolulu International Airport appears to be price-gouging for parking, and in a manner that might be illegal.
The maximum daily parking rate increased from $18 to $22 on January 1. But the airport is apparently charging motorists who pick up their cars after January 1 the new and higher rate for all days they were parked there, even any days they were parked before the new rate took effect!
Welcome home, locals!
How can this be legal?
Is it even deliberate, or just typical bureaucratic stupidity?
Yep, that’s exactly what they’re doing.
I was charged the new rate for the seven days I was parked before January 1, as well as the two days after. Sure doesn’t seem fair.
And I laughed out loud this morning because the new rate was all over the morning news programs but nobody picked up on the fact that it’s being applied retroactively. The news bunnies just chirped and smiled like they were reading from a script provided by the airport to justify the new rate, and even went out of their way to point out that it still costs more to park at LAX.
Seriously.
If you want to find a few good solutions to this problem. Please join Nextdoor Stop all illegal fireworks group https://nextdoor.com/g/bpsgrmvtm/ We have 230+ members representing all areas of Oahu.
Obviously, the only real solution to illegal fireworks use is to repeal prohibition and to provide free or subsidized fireworks according to presumed membership in historically underserved communities that are determined by the all-knowing state.
https://altigator.com/en/aerial-uav-surveillance-with-infrared-and-hd-video-cameras-and-zoom/ This is the type of drone that the Honolulu City Council should buy for HPD. Because Hawaii Fireworks Laws allow the police to make arrests because skyrockets were shot from a person’s home. This drone can be linked to a system of maps and has infrared zoom cameras will make it a lot easier to prosecute property owners. The city would also need to change its Fireworks law that doesn’t allow drones.
What percentage of the large explosions we have been hearing all year round are propane bird scare cannons? They cost as little as $150 and there are no laws outlawing them because they are not fireworks. https://margosupplies.com/us-en/product-category/products/scare-cannons-1/
So now the numbers are in:
2,400 calls to police about illegal fireworks.
17 citations.
3 arrests.
Yesterday, the mayor and police chief made some mumbling noncommittal statements about needing to do something, but with no coherent idea of what that would be.
They made the statements not because this is a serious safety issue that needs to be addressed, and they wanted to call it to everyone’s attention and develop a plan of action or urge public maturity and cooperation moving forward, but because some reporter randomly caught up with them and shoved a microphone toward them, so they kinda had to say something to make it go away. Nobody managed to find our newly minted governor and poke him too. Meanwhile, it’s been reported that illegal fireworks were shipped to Oahu’s jail, where a guard attempted to retrieve them.
Folks, this is not enforcement.
And this is not leadership.