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Honolulu Lite
WITH people staying away from satellite city halls in droves, the basic flaw in the latest fireworks permitting scheme should become clear. Outlaw firepower
is formidablePermits? They don't need no stinking permits. People who illegally pop firecrackers on New Year's Eve are basically outlaws. An outlaw is different from a criminal. A criminal is someone who breaks the law with the hope of getting away with it and then screams like a whiny baby when he's caught. The criminal will claim to be a victim and say he didn't know what he did was against the law.
An outlaw doesn't give a rip what the law is. An outlaw blows up strings of 50,000 firecrackers and shoots off illegal aerials as a public celebration of contempt for authority. Trying to make such people pay for a fireworks permit is as futile as it would have been to allow Jesse James to remain free as long as he robbed only one stage coach a month.
Nevertheless, under pressure by a small group of party poopers to keep Hawaii's air breathable on New Year's Eve (you mean you can't hold your breath for just ONE night of the year?), the state Legislature weanied out and passed a law requiring people to pay $25 for the privilege of shooting off a maximum of 5,000 fire crackers. Five thousand? Blowing up only 5,000 firecrackers is like a kiss on the forehead. Setting off several 50,000 and 100,000 firecracker strings ... now THAT'S smooching!
THE lawmakers were in one of the most uncomfortable places politicians could find themselves: having to make a decision. Fireworks is the third rail of Hawaii politics. I'm not sure what the first two rails are, but fireworks are basically a political hands-off issue. It's a no-winner. If you ban fireworks you are going to be voted out of office and no one's going to pay attention to the ban anyway. If you allow fireworks to be blown up at will, the lung purists will be pounding on your door. And because their lungs are pure, they can pound for a long time without getting winded. So the fearless lawmakers decided to tick off both sides and try to squeeze some money out of a few dummies while they were at it.
Only about 500 people have applied for fireworks permits so far. Those are the kind of law-abiding citizens that you want as your next door neighbors but not necessarily organizing your street's New Year's bash. The real partyers are not going to get permits. Why should they give the government $25 for the right to be outlaws?
There is a real danger when hundreds of thousands of people play with fire at the same time. Things tend to get burnt, like buildings for instance. But that argument doesn't seem to hit home for the firecracker outlaws. If the authorities were really serious about stopping fireworks, they'd make shooting off an illegal firecracker a capital offense.
I'm not suggesting that anyone be executed, but lawmakers could take away their house or car and lock them up for 50 or so years.
Since that's not going to happen, authorities could try to figure out how so many fireworks get into an island state to begin with. A million pounds of illegal fireworks can't simply materialize out of thin and relatively pure air.
You've either got to stop the flow or let the spigot stay open. Shutting it part way the way the current ill-conceived law does only encourages the outlaw heart to beat in all of us.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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