Fireworks could be banned year round in Kent starting in 2017 if the City Council next Tuesday night approves a controversial new ordinance.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The council\u2019s Public Safety Committee voted 2-1 this past Tuesday to recommend the full seven-member council approve the ordinance to ban fireworks on the Fourth of July. Kent\u2019s current city code allows people to purchase and possess legal fireworks from June 28 to July 4, but fireworks can only be discharged from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on July 4. Violators of the code must pay a $250 fine.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Voters approved a ban in an advisory vote to the council on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. A total of 10,017 (63.09 percent) favored a ban while 5,861 (36.91 percent) opposed it. The ban would prohibit the sale, possession and discharge of consumer fireworks.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe asked the community to come to us and tell us \u2018what do you think,\u2019 \u201d Councilman Jim Berrios said at the committee meeting before he voted for the ban. \u201cAt over 60 percent, it\u2019s a resounding message. It\u2019s the emotional message that I have heard time after time over the last year and a half. We can\u2019t ignore that. \u2026 The community has been very emotional about this issue, they\u2019ve spoken to us and now it\u2019s time for us to act.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The council will consider the ordinance at 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall under the \u201cOther Business\u201d section of the agenda.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With reservations, Councilman Bill Boyce voted in favor of the ban at the committee meeting.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll vote for it to move it to the full council for discussion,\u201d Boyce said. \u201cI want to do some more homework to help me get where I need to go and make my decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Boyce asked fire officials if a neighborhood could put on its own fireworks display and basically found out the permitted shows that are allowed require a pyrotechnician licensed by the state as well as a fire marshal inspection. Any new ordinance passed by the council would not apply to the city\u2019s Fourth of July Splash fireworks display at Lake Meridian or any other permitted display, including events at the ShoWare Center, where smokeless pyrotechnics are sometimes used.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Councilman Les Thomas voted against the ban. He voiced numerous concerns, including the number of police officers it would take to enforce the ban as well as the one chance a year veterans can legally discharge fireworks to celebrate their fight for liberty and freedom.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He also questioned the need to adopt the ban now when according to state law, any ordinance adopted by a city that is more restrictive than the state shall have an effective date no sooner than one year after its adoption.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThis calls for a total ban and is happening very fast,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cThis won\u2019t take effect until July 4 of 2017. We\u2019ve got eight months to process this, and I\u2019m not sure why we are in such a hurry.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Rich Brandau, of Kent, who served on the group that recommended voters approve a ban, told the Public Safety Committee on Tuesday what he thinks the council should do next.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are also the voters that vote you into office and I think it\u2019s a slap in their face for you to say you asked us and we gave you our opinion and now you are saying you are going to do what you want to do,\u201d Brandau said. \u201cYou said let\u2019s put in the hands of the voters. The results are in and I think you should follow through with that.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fireworks could be banned year round in Kent starting in 2017 if the City Council next Tuesday night approves a controversial new ordinance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":11407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-11406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11406"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11406"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}