Fireworks discussion back on table

Jenny Marder

One of Surf City’s most explosive debates -- fireworks at the beach

-- will be reignited Tuesday at the City Council meeting.

The Huntington Beach Fourth of July executive board is hoping that

the council has changed its mind since last year and will approve

fireworks at the beach for the city’s centennial Independence Day

celebration. Last year, the council narrowly denied the event for

2003 due to safety concerns.

The fireworks display would have been the largest Fourth of July

extravaganza on the West Coast and second only to Manhattan in the

nation.

“We’re going to try again. It’s the 100th anniversary of the

parade, and we know that fireworks were missed last year,” said City

Councilwoman Pam Julien Houchen, who will introduce the proposal on

Tuesday.

Houchen, who also backed the fireworks proposal last year, said

she received a flood of angry mail when it was denied.

“People were mad, people were angry,” Houchen said. “There was

truly a lot of people upset about fireworks.”

City Council members who voted to cancel the fireworks feared a

repeat of civil disturbances that occurred in the past and some still

have the same fears.

In the mid-1990s, Fourth of July celebrations spun out of control

year after year. Illegal firecrackers were accompanied by couch

burnings, flying bottles, fires on residential streets and swinging

police batons. Arrests climbed from 40 people in 1993 to 257 in 1994.

In 1995, a 21-year-old man was shot to death.

Police finally cracked down in 1996, when arrests peaked at 546

and Downtown streets were barricaded to curb the mayhem.

Mayor Cathy Green maintained that fireworks on the beach would be

a mistake.

“We have spread ourselves so thin and we don’t have the same

number of police officers,” Green said. “All you’d need is one thing

to happen and we’re back to ground one.”

Houchen, however, was confident that the city can handle it.

“Personally, I don’t think that there’s a safety issue,” she said.

“I certainly think our police department can handle it and think our

community is mature enough for it.”

Police Chief Kenneth Small also told the council last year that

his department could manage the crowds.

Last Independence Day, police confiscated about 45,000 illegal

fireworks, roughly seven times as much as was rounded up in 2002.

While public safety officials couldn’t pinpoint a cause, Fire

Chief Duane Olson said at the time that the lack of fireworks marked

the only difference between last year and the year before.

“There had to be something that did it,” Houchen agreed.

The City Council will vote on the proposal at the City Council

meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday in the council chambers.