Photo by Philip B. Poston/The Sentinel
AURORA | It’s a fireworks fizzle this year, Aurora.
Despite city lawmakers two years ago surprising almost everyone and upending a permanent longtime ban on using and selling fireworks in the city, dry conditions prompted fire officials to snuff all the pyrotechnics this year.
The city’s official fireworks display near city hall on July 4 will be held as scheduled.
Aurora police and firefighters have begun an enforcement campaign, touting the upper limit of fines that can be imposed on scofflaws, $2,600.
Twitter accounts for Aurora police and firefighters include pictures confiscated fireworks that normally would be allowed here, and are for sale just across the city’s border in Parker and other locations in Adams County.
For generations, Aurora banned all fireworks, everything from sparklers to bottle rockets to artillery shells. But last year city council softened the rules, allowing the sale and use of a limited list of fireworks — basically anything that doesn’t explode or shoot into the sky, mirroring the rules common to many unincorporated parts of the state. The softer rules came with a carve out, though, which left it up to the fire chief to decide each year whether the conditions were safe enough for even that limited list of fireworks.
After weeks of meetings about the dire dry summer conditions, and at the end of a particularly hot stretch of days, Gray on June 14 banned the use and sale of all fireworks in Aurora, including those more-tame options like sparklers and ground snakes.
“The conditions right now in our region, they are just ripe for us to have some type of wildfire event,” he said this week.
Wildfire means different things in different parts of the state. Think massive brush fire on the city’s eastern plains rather than a local re-inactment of Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow.
The move though — which followed a similar ban handed down days earlier by the Arapahoe County commissioners — stung the dozen or so licensed fireworks stands that were set to open across Aurora. Brad Witherell, owner of Davey Jones Fireworks, was set to open five fireworks tents in Aurora this summer. Last summer his company was one of several with tents dotting parking lots around Aurora for the city’s first legal fireworks sales.
The ban this year came as a bit of a surprise, he said, especially considering the low-risk presented by the fountains, sparklers and other “safe and sane” fireworks he sells.
“They are designed for these western, dryer states,” he said. “We sell them in California, New Mexico and Arizona.”
Professional fireworks displays around the metro
Aurora Fourth of July Spectacular
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Aurora Municipal Center
15151 E. Alameda Parkway
Aurora, CO
Independence Eve Fireworks in Denver
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
8 p.m.
Civic Center Park, 1500 Broadway, Denver, CO
Glendale Fireworks display
July 2, 2018,
9:15 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Creekside Park, 4400 E. Virginia Ave., Glendale, CO