LIGHT ‘EM IF YOU GOT ‘EM: Fireworks sales are smoking in Aurora after years of prohibition

AURORA | Customers resting their elbows on the counter and gazing at the fountains and sparklers at Pop, Boom, Bang Fireworks seem a bit more at ease this year, owner Steve Deden says. 

“People have been scared in the past,” Deden said.

For the first time, lighting fireworks is legal in Aurora after city council this year lifted the city’s long-standing ban, which included everything from sparklers to smoke bombs.

Deden’s stand sits just outside the Aurora line in unincorporated Arapahoe County at East Florida Avenue and Parker Road.

Stands like Deden’s have long been legal in the unincorporated corners of the county, and Deden has sold fireworks legally there for several years. Business has always been good despite the fact that almost everything he previously sold was prohibited just across the border in Aurora.

With the addition of several new stands within the city of Aurora, competition might be a little more fierce this year than it has been in the past, but Deden isn’t worried.

Now that people can light fireworks in their front yard free of worry, Deden said he thinks more people will be buying in 2017 than they did in the past.

At Pop, Boom, Bang a busier year than 2016 would be a feat, considering the stand sold out of their stock on July 4 last year.

In all, 13 fireworks stands are up and running in Aurora.

Under the city’s new rules, the stands were allowed to open June 15, but most waited until last weekend to open their doors and start making the city’s first legal fireworks sales.

One of the new tents is a TnT fireworks stand near South Chambers Road and Parker Road. Like several stands around the city, this one is staffed by students working there as a fundraiser. In this case the funds benefit the Hinkley High School Wrestling team. Up Chambers near East Colfax Avenue another TnT stand is staffed with memebrs of Hinkley’s choir.

Darin Arnold, an assistant wrestling coach at Hinkley High School, said business at the stand has been steady so far.

With Aurora’s new rules in place, Arnold said some customers aren’t exactly sure what the fireworks laws are now, but the staff tries to explain as best they can.

“We’re still getting a lot of questions from folks,” he said.

The stand has been a good fit for the team, Arnold said, and some of the proceeds will help pay for Hinkley wrestlers to attend a wrestling camp in Nebraska.

Felicia Wedding, 39, was at the stand near Chambers and Parker filling a basket with fireworks for her kids. Wedding said she won’t go too crazy on the fireworks purchases, but likes to get a few every year for the kids.

She said most of the fireworks in the basket will make it to the Fourth, but a few will probably be set off in advance of the holiday.

Up the road at the Davey Jones Fireworks Superstore at Parker and East Quincy Avenue, manager Veronika Nelson said sales have been slow since the black and red tent opened June 24, but that’s usually the case.

Nelson said she has worked Davey Jones tents for the past five summers and each year sales tend to be slow at the start but really pick up closer to the holiday. The first few days of July will be busy, she said, and she fully expects customers to come back a few times on July 4 after they light off their first purchases.

Some customers coming through the tent flaps have been asking about just what is and isn’t illegal, Nelson said. But even though the rules in Aurora are different this year, she said the confusion about Colorado’s fireworks rules is a longstanding tradition.

“There is confusion every year,” she said.

In general, Colorado law forbids anything that explodes or shoots into the air. That means if you see someone lighting off Black Cats or bottle rockets, they probably scored their stash across state lines. They’re also breaking the law, and in Aurora could face a pretty hefty fine — fire officials say the fine could reach $2,650.