If you were on Wrightsville Beach this Independence Day after dark, you were treated to a fabulous fireworks display — pyrotechnics bursting overhead from all directions.
The only problem is the fireworks busting in air are not legal. If it explodes, spins, flies, jumps in the air, or leaves the ground it is illegal in this state. Fireworks laws are quite strict in North Carolina, but most everything is legal right over the South Carolina border.
Still, as long as I have lived on the beach I have been amazed by the fireworks along the waterfront —any waterfront, sound, creek, ICWW or ocean. It is truly remarkable.
I do, however, remember the first year that I fully realized the big stuff was illegal. It was more than a decade ago. I had gone down to the beach to be among locals for a July Fourth party at an oceanfront townhouse. After the burgers and baked beans, as it got dark, the men in the group began carrying long boards between them toward the beach. Each was set up with large cans holding fireworks. This was big stuff and lots of it.
The rest of us trickled down to the beach as fireworks began going off. It was prolific. It was loud. It was smoky, and just a little scary. Smoke and gritty stuff got into my eyes. Personally, I prefer a greater distance between me and explosives than I had this night. The entire beach strand was crowded; people stood, sat in chairs, on blankets, or on the sand.
About that time along came an overwhelmed couple of police officers. They asked, do you know whose display this is? I wasn’t sure of the name of the owner of the townhouse, or all of the men doing the lighting, but I did know several. Still I said no.
It was my last time down on the beach strand for fireworks; I watch them now from my own yard.
The new me: If it is illegal, I don’t want any part of it. It is that black and white. I still feel bad about my lie.
But the question surfaces each year: Why are fireworks illegal? Consumer fireworks are regulated by the General Statutes of North Carolina, which prohibits us from possessing or shooting off any firework that explodes, spins, flies, jumps in the air or leaves the ground. All commercial firework displays are subject to the municipal permitting process relating to special events as well as the fire code.
Wrightsville is too densely built out to allow any opportunity for another fire to level half the town. Just ask the fire chief.
If it is illegal, how is it enforced at Wrightsville? That answer is complaint driven: Someone calls 911 to complain about fireworks, police are dispatched and if the culprits are located, a ticket issued.
But that may be about to change.
Mayor Bill Blair reached his limit Saturday night, and while his case is not atypical, he just happens to be the mayor. The Blair home is oceanfront between Crystal Pier and the jetty.
He described Saturday (not Friday) night this way: “It felt like World War 3.”
The mayor’s grandchildren were sound asleep upstairs.
His tale of woe continues: “Everybody’s shooting off little fireworks and then all of a sudden, about 10:30 … you know at the flotilla when you hear that thuummp, thuummp? All of a sudden my neighbor, who has rented his house out, that guy starts shooting these things off, and my whole house starts shaking. It was like mortar rounds going off. My grandkids wake up and start screaming, my dog poops all over himself, in my house.”
As he describes it: “These fireworks were not purchased in South Carolina; they were purchased at a military depot somewhere.”
So, being the mayor, he dialed up his police chief, who sent the posse. The offenders received tickets.
The mayor says he also has a big problem with the trash that piles up in his yard every national holiday.
“I am always picking up burned-out objects in my yard. Last year my house almost caught on fire where they burned down the sand dunes … they had to call the fire trucks down to put the fire out. It burned up about an acre of dune,” he said.
He says he is not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, but the beach was trashed last weekend, and Wrightsville Beach has to go clean it all up.
“It comes at a cost. I told the chief, I get fireworks … but we need to get it in our mind that when people are out there lighting off munitions, you can’t wait for a 911 call. When they hear the seismic testing when they fire one of these off, the police need to go take care of it … these guys that are putting tubes in the ground and firing off mortar rounds, that is dangerous,” he said.
You have been warned.
