“John” leans toward the tube with a lighter. Flick, flick, flick. Nothing.
“This is why we use punks,” he mutters under his breath.
After the sixth or seventh try, the fuse lights and John comes sprinting back across the street with a maniacal grin
on his face.
With a not-so-muffled thump, the shell shoots upward. Two seconds later, it explodes high in the air with a shower of red and green sparks.
This is not what the city of Santa Maria would refer to as “safe and sane.”
Aerial and explosive fireworks are banned under state law, according to Larry Comerford, a fire investigator with the Santa Maria Fire Department.
“Anything that explodes or goes up in the air is illegal,” he said.
But getting those illegal fireworks isn’t as hard as one might think. Despite best efforts by the city to stamp out their use, one look around the horizon come the 4th shows an almost continuous display of colorful aerial explosions.
So where are they coming from? Just as I’m thinking about how to worm my way into the seedy underground world of illegal fireworks for a story, I get a call from an acquaintance. We’ll call him “Fawkes.”
“Hey, you know anyone who wants to buy some illegal fireworks?”
That easy? Really?
For purely journalistic reasons, I answered “yes.” A short time later, we met in a parking lot and he opened the trunk of his car to show off the goods: mortars, Roman candles, bottle rockets, firecrackers. Fawkes was stocked.
“Twelve percent over sticker price,” he said. “I’ve got to cover my expenses.”
Expenses? Where did these come from?
“We just drove into Vegas, got up early the next morning, and started asking around,” he said. “Eventually we got directions to this place with a couple of warehouses filled with fireworks.”
He asked me not to name the “place,” for fear of drying up his source.
“People’s first assumption is that they’re coming from Mexico,” the fire department’s Comerford said. “They’re not. I haven’t seen one in the last 10 years from Mexico. They’re all coming from Pahrump; it’s an Indian reservation in Nevada. Every one of the fireworks we’ve seized has been from there.”
Sorry, Fawkes.
A website for fireworks in Pahrump states that any fireworks purchased there must leave the county within 24 hours, and that Pahrump residents aren’t allowed to purchase explosive fireworks. It also offers the following advice:
“Be advised that law enforcement officers do look for people who purchase fireworks and try to bring them to California. They do have check points set up and surveillance.”
It’s no wonder, then, that despite his department’s best efforts, Comerford said illegal fireworks still make it into the city each year. Last year, for example, a Santa Maria man was arrested after having 3,600 pounds of illegal fireworks shipped to Santa Maria.
That’s where Comerford and his fellow investigators, along with the police department, come in. In addition to the city’s fireworks hotline, Comerford said they drive around neighborhoods undercover looking for people setting off illegal fireworks.
“Last year, a couple of undercover officers were walking through a neighborhood when a guy ran out into the street and started lighting off mortars,” he said. “They hung out, talked to him, and when they found out where he had bought them, they arrested both him and the guy he bought them from.”
Even without illegal out-of-state fireworks coming in, Comerford said the inventiveness of youth presents its own problems.
“This time of year, kids are off for vacation,” he said. “Their parents will buy safe and sane fireworks and the kids will modify them.”
Comerford said he “doesn’t want to give anyone ideas” when it comes to modifying fireworks, but mentioned that he’d seen duct tape involved. He warned that it doesn’t take an evil genius to break the law when it comes to modifying safe and sane fireworks, either.
“Even if you take the stand off a Piccolo Pete, that becomes illegal,” he explained.
Comerford said the city is doing the best they can with the resources they have.
“We get calls from people saying ‘Where the hell are you? My neighborhood is under siege!’” he said. “There are so many out there, we just can’t get them all.”
Contact Staff Writer Nicholas Walter at nwalter@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 1-8, 2010.