Police still flooded with fireworks complaints
|
“Right now, it is illegal to shoot fireworks within the city limits of McMinnville,” said McMinnville Police Captain Bryan Denton. “The recent ordinance, permitting the use and sale of fireworks within the city limits, is limited to days surrounding July 4th and New Years.”
According to Denton, the ordinance allows the use and sale of fireworks between June 8 and July 8 and then again from Dec. 1 through Jan. 2. Using fireworks outside the aforementioned dates is a violation of the city ordinance and violators may be subject to warning, seizure of fireworks and/or citation.
“What we think has happened is that some people didn’t understand the limited time you can shoot fireworks because we’re still getting a lot of firework complaints,” Denton said. “The ordinance doesn’t allow for year-round shooting. It just allows for the limited times spelled out in the ordinance.”
The new ordinance permitting the limited use of fireworks was passed last year. The ordinance allows shooting of fireworks from 1 p.m. until midnight during the prescribed dates, although the cut-off time may be moved up to 10:30 p.m. in residential neighborhoods where a noise complaint is registered.
While police said the number of complaints stayed steady with years past early on during the July 4 period, the number of complaint calls rose dramatically in the days immediately surrounding July 4.
“We’re just asking the public to reserve their use of fireworks to the prescribed dates so our officers aren’t having to answer so many disturbing the peace calls,” Denton said.