BAN ALL ILLEGAL FIREWORKS

Action needed now. It's critical !!!!!

Jan 13, 2008

1/8/08

Important, ?–The Consumer Fireworks Task Force has concluded its meetings and is preparing to submit it?’s recommendations to the legislature in the next few days. There will be numerous recommendations and they will be posted on their web site, which you can access by using the link on our home page.
There is some attempt to better control the sale and use of fireworks, however, there is concern that we will not have any better enforcement than we have now ?– which is non-existent.
One of the proposals is to make ?“firecrackers?” legal, similar to sparklers. This is not good as no exploding fireworks should be legal. The proposal includes some limits on the hours they can be used, however, this will present big enforcement problems for law enforcement.
Another proposal is to prohibit the purchase of aerial fireworks without a permit. To get a permit the person must take a safety course and pay $25.00 . Once a permit is obtained the only place the aerial fireworks can be used are at designated ?“shooting sites?” within the county. Again, there will be severe enforcement challenges for law enforcement. If fireworks are allowed to be sold within neighborhoods, they will be used within neighborhoods. There is within the proposed recommendations a requirement to have a permit to purchase or possess aerial fireworks. This would be an improvement over the current law which requires law enforcement to personally ?“see?” a person shoot the fireworks to make an arrest. Again, will law enforcement enforce the law?
The legislature will start the rewrite to Statute 791 as soon as the legislature convenes. The fireworks industry will lobby hard to amend the law to make all consumer fireworks legal. That was their objective when they pushed the legislation to establish the ?“task force?” Even though they had 3 representatives on the 8 person task force they did not get recommendations that would legalize all consumer fireworks, so I?’m sure they are already lobbying our legislators to get more favorable amendments as the law moves through the legislative committees. We owe a lots of thanks to the many anti-fireworks citizens who attended the task force meetings and who were diligent in writing and e-mailing the task force with our desire to get fireworks out of Florida.

Very Important ---- we must contact our legislators and send the message ?— ?“Strengthen Statute 791 , don?’t weaken it?”

Please contact your sate legislators now and tell them to Strengthen State 791, don?’t weaken it. Fireworks and children and animals doesn?’t mix.

In addition, tell them to not legalize any fireworks, including firecrackers.
You can link to your State Senators and Representative using the links on our home page.
In addition, it is very important that you contact the Senate President and the Speaker of the House to send them the same message.
Senate President, Ken Pruitt; Phone: 850-487-5229 or 850-487- 5088. Address: The Capitol, 404 S. Monroe St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-1100
Speaker of the House, Marco Rubio: Phone: 850-488-1450. Address: The Capitol, 402 S. Monroe St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-1300.
Or you can e-mail them through the Legislature web site

The fireworks industry has opened the door for changes to the Statute. We must not let them legalize fireworks. Contact all the legislators this week. We need a show of force now.
Thank you.