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To Our Readers
IT'S time for my annual scolding about fireworks. Sorry readers, it's my job. Stop looking
the other wayLast year, I wrote: "Everybody's got an opinion about New Year's fireworks, about laws the Legislature ought to pass or not, about which kind should be legal and which shouldn't, about what the police should do and about where the guy down the street with the inexhaustible supply of cherry bombs ought to stick them."
Two years ago, I described what I saw from the hillside above Palolo: "Over the rain-soaked roofs ...outlaw rockets burst one after another...strings of hundreds of thousands of firecrackers sparked, rattled and thundered in a continuous roar. The sounds and sights brought to mind television pictures of Iraqi anti-aircraft firing into the Baghdad skies. Some say the ban on aerials was unenforceable, but it seemed to be merely unenforced."
This year, the inevitable happened in Palolo Valley. The roofs weren't rain-soaked. A house caught fire. A woman died. On Aiea Heights, a family was burned out. In Waianae, a house sustained $20,000 in damage. HFD put out 85 fires caused by fireworks.
If this were a disease -- say, the infamous "flesh-eating bacteria" -- the Center for Disease Control would have us in quarantine: 85 cases in three days, one death, two homes destroyed -- oh, the humanity!
But no. Instead we're getting letters to the editor from crackpots who equate a ban on aerial fireworks with Prohibition. They don't get it.
Bootleg liquor was a problem, sure, but speakeasies were usually discreet and tipplers didn't set their neighbors' houses on fire.
At least Prohibition had Elliot Ness. I'd settle for McGruff, the Crime Dog. Instead of taking a bite out of crime, the police are either intimidated or just looking the other way. Without the civic will to get the job done, we can only look forward to more of the same.
The issue isn't firecrackers. It's enforcing the ban on aerials. It's scofflaws injuring and killing innocent bystanders. It's someone firing a 51-inch rocket into Thomas Nago's house. It's criminal.
John Flanagan is editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin.
To reach him call 525-8612, fax to 523-8509, send
e-mail to publisher@starbulletin.com or write to
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802.