It isn`t just for cigarettes anymore.
Indiana, long known for discount gas and smokes, also has become the promised land for Illinois residents in search of Jumping Jacks, Toot N`
Twirls, Sky Blasters, Thunder Bombs, Autumn Drizzles and all the other potentially dangerous delights presently forbidden in the Land of Lincoln.
For people unfamiliar with the warning ”Emits showers of sparks,” those are the trade names of just a few of the fireworks available just across the state line-as long as buyers are over 18, cough up a 5 percent sales tax and sign a form promising to transport their purchases out of Indiana within five days. Judging from the number of Illinois license plates in the parking lot of a Merrillville fireworks store on a recent Sunday afternoon, a lot of people are doing just that.
And while this state of affairs has elated Illinois` amateur
pyrotechnicians and the emporiums that cater to them, it does not sit well with safety and law enforcement groups.
”There is no such thing as a safe firework,” said Ed Cavello, chairman of the Illinois Fire Safety Alliance and chief of the Mt. Prospect Fire Department. ”No matter how closely you try and regulate these things, there are going to be some mishaps involved” in their use.
The industry, however, takes a different view.
”In my opinion, certain politicians and enforcement agencies force the American public to break the law by not allowing the use of Consumer Product Safety Commission-tested Class C fireworks on the 4th of July,” said Bruce Zoldan, president of the B.J. Alan Co. of Youngstown, Ohio, one of the nation`s largest fireworks retailers and owner of Phantom Fireworks, which has a showroom in Merrillville.
”There is a massive desire by the American public to use fireworks to celebrate America`s birthday,” Zoldan said. ”They are looked at like hot dogs and apple pie. They are part of our tradition. It has not been that way for just the last five or 10 years-it has been that way since our country was created as a democracy.”
In 1976, the Consumer Product Safety Commission set construction and performance guidelines for a wide range of fireworks, including firecrackers, although the decision to legalize is still left in the hands of individual states. In the wake of the CPSC decision, a number of states have amended their laws to allow for the sale of a greater variety of fireworks. Legal (but not in Illinois), or Class C fireworks, include such items as firecrackers, bottle rockets, Roman candles, ground spinners, pinwheels, parachutes, missiles and aerial displays.
Sparklers, snakes, smoke bombs and some fountains are also Class C, but because they are perceived as being relatively harmless, are available in a wider range of jurisdictions.
How much of an injury problem fireworks really pose is a matter of some debate. The American Pyrotechnics Association maintains that injury rates have stayed constant at an average of about 10,000 per year since 1976, while the volume of fireworks consumed each year since that time has more than doubled. The APA also points to CPSC statistics showing that children are far more likely to be hurt as result of using bicycles, skateboards, BB guns and even pencils and pens than they are from setting off fireworks.
Jim McKechnie doesn`t care about those statistics. The executive director of the Illinois Society to Prevent Blindness said: ”While we hope and pray that eye injuries (from fireworks) are on the decrease-and I think they are, ever so slightly-if it is one eye, it is too much. This is a basic and fundamental issue of safety. And it`s not just eyes and vision that are at risk, but skin, fingers and other appendages.”
McKechnie`s organization helped to author the Illinois statutes of the 1930s that virtually eliminated legal fireworks from the state. He is a leader in the fight against periodic attempts to liberalize the sales law to bring it more into line with those of neighboring states like Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky and Wisconsin. One such attempt last year failed to pass by a slim 28-26 margin in the Illinois Senate.
While Zoldan readily acknowledges that misuse or deliberate alteration of his products can lead to burns and other injuries, he maintains that illegal items such as M-80 and M-100 bombs are far more hazardous.
”If those were eliminated, the big push to ban fireworks would be off. . . . There is nothing in my showroom that will blow off a finger or a hand,” he said.
Zoldan has been selling fireworks for 20 years, since he was a teenager, and said that he has never injured himself using his products and neither have any of his friends or relatives.
Still, whatever the risk to eyes and fingers, fireworks are an illegal expression of patriotism in Illinois.
”People see it as an inalienable right to set off fireworks on the 4th of July,” said Kent Jones, south area commander of the Cook County Sheriff`s Police. Many consider it ”part of the celebration rite and it is very well supported by the public. . . . We go through the same thing every year, and every year it seems to get a little bigger.”
But, Jones added, ”it is a safety issue. . . . We know that every 4th of July, in every emergency room, we are going to see some serious injuries.”
For Jones and his officers, the laws against fireworks ”are very difficult to enforce because there is so much of it going on.” Their job is not made any easier by a largely unsympathetic public. ”Most people see it as just nuisance enforcement,” he said.
Even when they do encounter people with illegal fireworks, ”we won`t always make an arrest-especially if it`s just a couple of ladyfingers (tiny firecrackers),” he said. ”We will seize and inventory” the fireworks before turning them over to the bomb squad for destruction.
In Tinley Park, where a village ordinance bans even the use of sparklers, the police take a similar view, according to Gene Klimek, crime prevention officer: ”Once every few years, we will get somebody who has a load of them, but most of the ones we find are for personal use. Generally, what we`ll do if they are normal, rational adults is confiscate and give them a verbal warning. If (the officers) are called back a second time, they would issue a citation.”
The Tinley Park Police issue six to 12 citations a year.
One customer from Illinois in an Indiana fireworks outlet on a recent Sunday afternoon was pushing a shopping cart filled with bottle rockets, Roman candles and other backyard favorites (Zoldan estimates the average individual purchase is about $200). He was asked why he didn`t just go to a civic-sponsored professional display to satisfy his pyrotechnic urges.
”I like to set them off myself,” he said. ”I guess it goes back to being a kid and playing with fire-that and the explosions.”
When informed that the use of fireworks in Illinois is against the law, he responded: ”So is driving 65 in a 55 zone and I do that, too.”
