Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Fireworks

Does anyone else have a love/hate relationship with fireworks because of all the people in your neighborhood setting off fireworks until all hours of the night for several weeks before and after any holiday that celebrates with fireworks (it's the day before the U.S. 4th of July for me)? It wouldn't be so bad except for it's nearly midnight as I type this and the fact that each new "boom" makes my dogs Jade and Sophie start barking and my cat Clark start cowering... if we still had Bud (may his 13 year old doggie soul rest in peace) he'd be cowering under a bed, in the bathtub, or trying to squeaze under a couch (he was a golden retriever, so that wasn't very likely, but he still tried, even if he was tranquilized) in fear of the loud noises.

Don't get me wrong, I love the 4th itself and appreciate the meaning behind the holiday... but my poor dogs and cat are going nuts with each "boom" set off. And of course, with them going nuts it means we can't sleep either.

The only funny thing is that my 16 year old cat Ashes just sits on the back of the couch and looks at the other animals as if they've lost their minds.

Ugh, nail on the head. There's a country club a couple of neighborhoods over from my folk's house where I'm visiting for a couple of weeks. As much as I love watching the fireworks from my backyard, they completely freak out my 9 year old Lab-Retriever. He does laps around the rooms in the house and just goes crazy. He's never been able to find a safe place to hide when he gets scared. And he's scared of *everything* LOL. So yeah, I'm only slightly dreading tomorrow night. <g> Best of luck with the frenzy.

JD

Oh, please, don't talk to me about fireworks. Bane of our existence. Here in the UK, we get them mainly on November 5th and for years we'd had to suffer morons setting them off at all hours of the day and night from about August onwards.

I have to say though, that last year wasn't so bad. Maybe the new laws they brought in, banning them after a certain time (11pm I think it was) actually worked. Or maybe it was just a blip.

Anyway, it never used to be so bad. But nowadays those things are more like weapons than fireworks. Far too powerful, way too loud - especially the ones they get off the internet, which exceed any UK regulations on how powerful they can be. It sounds like a mini war just erupted outside your window.

So...lovely to look at, but a pain in the neck having a dog that's cringing in terror all night. Homer hates fireworks, thunderstorms and helicopters, so the months leading up to November 5th are pretty much a nightmare.

If it was up to me, I'd ban their use for all but organised displays.

LabRat

Well, no fireworks here on the 3rd of october, we just don't celebrate our national holiday like this. Truth be told, we don't celebrate it at all. It's a rather calm day, but for a few politicians in Berlin.

But there is a grand hotel in the castle of my town and there are quite a few important people staying there. (Robbie Williams for example and the national soccer team of South Korea and God knows who else) They make fireworks about once a month if not more often. That can be kind of annoying, especially when they are creating such noise when there is war in Iraq (or when I desperately want to sleep)

I have very mixed feelings about fireworks. I've seen some spectacular displays, but my parents owned a shop that sold them. In the sixties, a couple of years after my father died, the place was burned out after a boy threw a lit firework into the display case. A woman who was working in the shop at the time was trapped behind the counter, but fortunately managed to escape to the cellar with minor injuries. For various reasons the insurance didn't cover the damage properly, and my mother was eventually forced to sell out, losing most of her money.

The odd aftermath of this was that in the nineties the school where I work had its 200th anniversary celebration, and someone was needed to collect a couple of boxes of fireworks from the local rep for a big fireworks company. As it happened I was the only person around with transport, so I got on my motorbike and drove round to the address I'd been given, which turned out to be a 20-odd story block of flats. The rep lived on the 15th floor, in an ordinary-looking flat - which must have held at least a dozen large boxes of fireworks apart from the stuff I was collecting.

As I was paying for them I mentioned my mother's experience, and it turned out that he'd been her supplier in the sixties. Since then I've often wondered how he had the nerve to keep the stuff in a flat that was in no way fireproof or explosion-proof. I saw a news story a couple of years later that he'd been prosecuted under whatever law was relevant. I wasn't particularly sorry about it.

I've always hated fireworks. Not particularly interested in the displays, and the noise is so annoying.

In Ireland, fireworks have been illegal since the 1960s, because of 'accidents' and fires caused by inappropriate use, in particular one fire which destroyed an entire building and killed at least one person.


Wendy

In Canada, the big day is July 1st. And so every year, the government gives small northern communities, like Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuck, money for fireworks.

Now I have friends in Inuvik and they think the government is absolutely crazy. After all, on July 1st, the sun doesn't set in Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk - hence, spectacular fireworks... not so spectacular

ML (don't you just love government thinking?)

Tuktoyaktuk, hehe. That reminds me of the show Due South that was on about a decade or so ago.

So it's pouring cats and dogs here and as I was driving home from the movies with my bro and his girlfriend we saw several people setting off fireworks. Yeah, they'll still go off, but it's pouring out! Those people were soaked to the skin. *shakes head* I don't get it.

For us to operate fireworks we actually need an explosives license. It's illegal to use them here so we never really have that problem. Chinese New Crackers are actually far worse than convention fireworks though. As a kid I used to block my ears!

Well, I couldn't believe it when I visited the United States a heck of a long time ago in the month of July and was told that fireworks were illegal for ordinary people, but guns were legal. So on the Fourth of July, people couldn't fire their own firecrackers. Hmmm. Here in Sweden, the government tried to outlaw firecrackers and fireworks about five years ago, I think. But then someone who sold these things complained to the EU, the European Union, which Sweden is a member of. And the EU ruled that Sweden couldn't forbid or even limit the sale of fireworks. Since then it's been crazy here in southern Sweden around New Years Eve, which is when fireworks are traditionally used in this part of Sweden. I swear teenaged kids start firing the things in mid-November and keep at it until February.

But guns are illegal, at least!

Ann

Each individual US state is different. I live in the Northeastern section. Most of the states my way are pretty strict with fireworks, only letting a few small things be legal (sparklers, small firecrackers) whereas a lot of Southern states have less restrictions regarding fireworks. A lot of people will buy the really big and dangerous ones down south and transport them across state lines to set off up here. They're illegal, but good luck enforcing it, especially this time of year.

Here in NSW (under State law) all fireworks are illegal unless licensed (pretty expensive licences, so mainly professional pyro-technicians apply for them)

we do have sparklers, though, but they put more and more ash on birthday cakes than they do cause fires...
and of course, the only reason anybody goes to Canberra (the bush capitol-technically not inside NSW--- and a 3.5hr drive from Sydney) is to buy anything larger...(mainly small crackers like Catherine-wheels etc...)....

it was of course made illegal in NSW due to large numbers of burns victims...but in the early 90's when the laws were introduced I was too young to really be into this stuff, so I don't know the actual cases or deaths if there were any...(only 6 or 7 yrs old at the time)


but one thing debated time and time again are the annual displays over Sydney Harbour for NYE and Australia Day (Jan.26)
the city spends 100's of millions each year on these displays, and at a time when we are in drought, and at the peak of our bush-fire season... to me it seems kind of hypocritical to be doing this when our fire-fighters are battling to save the lives and homes of people, where year after year I suffer asthma attacks from the increased pollution, and yet these same politicians producing the displays, and claiming all te glory for fantabulous NYE parties, are the very next day on the news for trying to establish some *new* policy to make the city more environmentally friendly...


hehehe
another long winded rant by beethoven

BTW
MARCUS,
a really sad story...
I know everybody has sad stories to tell, but I trust that since you were able to pick up the case of Fire-works on your bike, that you are (at least partially) over the event,

or at least are not a total wreck with any crippling phobias...

I've been a laboratory technician for 36 years, in that time I've been within feet of several explosions. Some of them caused by me, and not always intentionally... I think I can safely say that I'm not actually phobic about this stuff.