MINOCQUA – There’s a time and a place for private fireworks, and it’s not two weeks before and two weeks after the Fourth of July, says Minocqua Town Chairman Mark Hartzheim.
Hartzheim wants to rein in private fireworks that he says has become a lingering headache.
“My observation is that it’s getting to be a little bit out of hand, with not just what fireworks are being used, but the duration of time people are using them. It seems to be people are using them two weeks before, two weeks after the Fourth of July. So you basically are having a solid month of fireworks. I’ll be in bed two weeks after the Fourth of July and some family decides that it’s their Fourth of July. I’ll be in bed ten-thirty or eleven and all of a sudden I have to listen to a half hour of people’s fireworks going off, not knowing when they are going to stop.”
Hartzheim got board support to place a notice in the local paper asking people to be courteous when using fireworks. Private fireworks should be confined to July 3-5, it says. Hartzheim explains the impact of on-going fireworks: “It’s not just pets and other animals that experience stress and anxiety from fireworks. Veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can suffer for weeks after the bangs, smoke and flashes have finished.”
Police Chief David Jaeger says his officers will respond to complaints about fireworks. When they find the culprit – and sometimes that’s difficult to do – they will usually give a warning. A return visit might result in a citation. “On the Fourth we can be running from one end of the town to the other trying to find these fireworks. “Sometimes you just don’t even find them. I looked at 2018 (incident reports) and we had a total of 10 calls that were documented. That means we were able to establish that they were fireworks. But they also come in as, ‘I hear gunshots.’”
The number of citations issue for illegal fireworks was “minimal,” he said.
