Residents can share their opinions on the Nov. 3 general election ballot about whether the city of Kent should ban fireworks.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Proposition 1 is only an advisory vote to the City Council. The council will use the results of the vote to help determine whether to ban fireworks in the city. 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.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The question on the ballot is:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cShall the sale, possession and discharge of consumer fireworks be prohibited in the city of Kent?\u201d<\/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.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kent 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
\u201cThe personal fireworks situation in Kent is clearly unmanageable,\u201d according to a voters\u2019 pamphlet statement by the committee for the ban. \u201cAs one of the very few remaining cities in the area still allowing private use of fireworks, folks from surrounding cities come to Kent to discharge their fireworks and leave behind a mess for someone else to clean up. A large portion of this year\u2019s 38 citations went to people who don\u2019t live in Kent.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The committee against the ban wants no change in the law.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe loud booms you hear, the pink sticks and other rocket debris that you find would still be common in spite of a ban,\u201d according to a statement by the committee opposed to a ban. \u201cLocal regulations do not apply to sales on (Indian) reservations\u2026. Don\u2019t take away another freedom from families that celebrate the Fourth safely and sanely.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Editor’s Note<\/strong>: This story has been corrected about when legal fireworks can be discharged in Kent.<\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Residents can share their opinions on the Nov. 3 general election ballot about whether the city of Kent should ban fireworks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":5686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5685","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\/5685"}],"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=5685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5685"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}