Council votes 6-3 to ban the sale of fireworks within city limits

After months of back and forth, the debate ended with a presentation from the Canadian National Fireworks Association.

During their presentation, they asked council to reconsider the bylaw written by city officials and the fire department.

With the executive director Perry Logan saying that fireworks are not illegal in Canada and can be purchased by anyone online.

“I thought the presenter tonight made a good point whether you ban them or not, people are still going to buy them,” said Mayor Ted Clugston.

Instead, he asked councillors to focus the bylaw on making sure retailers would be able to help educate their customers and possibly even grant permits.

Clugston, who said he struggled with his decision, admitted he’d be worried about that approach.

“I don’t think they are going to listen and they are just going to say ‘yeah yeah yeah give me the fireworks. And I’m going to have a couple of beers and then fire off my fireworks.’ Then things don’t always go well when people do those things,” he said.

For many of the councillors though, their main concern was keeping residents safe from both injury and potential fires.

“The issue for me is our location environment. And we are bone dry in the summer. And a lot of grass and we have seen more and more fires taking place across this province, across western Canada over the last number of years. I think it’s our responsibility to continue to make our community safe from fires,” said Councillor Jamie McIntosh.

Clugston, who was one of the three who voted against the bylaw, said one of the biggest factors in his decision was the idea of over-regulating.

“A part of me that wants to shoot off fireworks is maybe the immature part or the thrill-seeker. I just think that people should have the right to be able to have fun and we don’t want to regulate fun,” he continued. “Then the part of me that says I’m responsible for public safety is going ‘oh boy what if anything ever happened?’”

McIntosh said that the safety concerns were too big for him on this issue to take that approach.

“There’s a lot of times when I actually agree with that viewpoint. I think that we are somewhat of an overly regulated world right now. But fires are incredibly fast and dangerous. And I think we need to do what we can to protect our community.”

Councillors Brian Varga and Kris Samraj were the other two to voted against the bylaw.

by Hayley Ferguson

Council votes 6-3 to ban the sale of fireworks within city limits

Our Community