Kent City Council committee passes fireworks ban with 2-1 vote

A Kent City Council committee barely passed a proposal to ban fireworks in town with a split 2-1 vote.

Jim Berrios and Dana Ralph voted for the ban at the council’s Public Safety Committee meeting on Tuesday. Les Thomas voted against it. The measure is scheduled to go to the full council at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 16, for approval, which is expected.

If adopted, the ban would prohibit the sale, possession and discharge of consumer fireworks year-round. The current city code allows fireworks to be discharged from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on July 4 and the sale of legal fireworks from June 28 to July 4. Because of a one-year notice state law requirement, the ban would not go into effect until 2017.

The annual public display of fireworks at Lake Meridian Park during the Fourth of July Splash event would still be allowed under the revised ordinance.

“I don’t believe it’s going to be very effective,” Thomas said about a ban. “I think the (Muckleshoot) reservation (in Auburn) is still too close. I believe there were fires in Renton – that has a total ban – last year on the Fourth of July.”

Kent voters (62 percent) approved a ban in an advisory vote to the council in November. Numerous complaints from residents to the council over the last few years about fireworks going off in their neighborhoods before, during and after the Fourth of July caused the council to consider a ban and ask for the advisory vote.

“I will support the ordinance only because of the advisory vote,” Ralph said. “I feel we are taking away the rights of a whole lot of people in an effort to get at those who may be reckless and are breaking laws that are already in place. At the risk of sounding emotional, there is a whole bunch of kids who will grow up not even knowing what a sparkler is, and that makes me sad.”

Thomas questioned the validity of the advisory vote.

“It was about 11,000 (in favor), which represents about 9 percent of our population,” Thomas said. “I will be voting no to represent the (thousands of) young people under 18 who are ineligible to vote and weren’t able to voice their opinion. I think it would be quite different had we had an open vote to all 125,000 citizens. And it is an advisory vote, not a mandate.”

Thomas wrote an opinion piece last month in the Kent Reporter seeking support to allow people who live around Lake Meridian to be able to set off fireworks as part of the Fourth of July Splash celebration. He said at the committee meeting he was disappointed to only get seven replies, four in favor of a ban and three against it, and added maybe enough people just don’t care about the issue.

The committee considered moving the fireworks ban vote to the March 1 council meeting because Thomas and Dennis Higgins have excused absences for the Feb. 16 meeting and it wanted the full seven-member council to have a say about the measure. But Thomas said he’s fine with the rest of the council voting on the ban with him gone.

“This has been a passionate, controversial issue for several years,” Thomas said. “I would prefer you go ahead and do it next week. It’s a difficult one for me to talk about without getting real emotional and I don’t want to do that in a public display. I sound like Mr. (Donald) Trump or something, but just go ahead and do it.”