Santa Ana police this week seized about 300 pounds of illegal fireworks and handed out $1,000 fines to two people as part of the city’s crackdown on the seasonal explosives.
“We’re promoting the fact that we’re going to be out there enforcing illegal fireworks,” Bertagna said. “We get fires, we get people injured every year.”
City officials emphasized that “safe and sane” fireworks are allowed on certain days before July 4 and on the holiday itself, Bertagna said. The safer, allowable fireworks can be used from noon to 10 p.m. on July 1, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on July 2 and 3, and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on the Fourth of July.
“There are days you can use the ‘safe and sane’ fireworks in the city, and we have a fireworks show, but we have a no-tolerance policy on the illegal fireworks,” Bertagna said.
Many of the people who dabble in the illegal fireworks get them from Nevada or Arizona for about $40 to $50 a box and then sell them here for $80 to $90, Bertagna said. Some get M80s from Mexico, Bertagna added.
Last year, at a demonstration on how dangerous the explosives can be, authorities detonated a firework that looked like a quarter-stick of dynamite and it blew a 6-inch hole in a door, Bertagna said.
— City News Service