KIDS THESE DAYS:Stop throwing grenades at fireworks

Perhaps this is the year the Great Park blasters will learn something from the Costa Mesa’s Chicken Little fireworks crowd.

In Newport Beach, while plans for a fabulous regional park are progressing, despite some of the usual snafus of a project this size, there are still a few folks holding out for an airport.

No, really.

And those who have finally given up on the airport are making sure that the rest of us are aware of every bump in the plans as the park develops.

This park is a huge undertaking and with it, there are going to be challenges, some of them big. But all that is just fine for the current and former El Toro airport supporters, who are taking any available chance to say, “I told you so.”

In Costa Mesa, this is the second year in a row in which those who oppose the sale of fireworks for three days every year have maintained a low profile.

Could they be giving up?

If so, it would put some sense into a debate that has been absurd for as long as it has been around.

For years, you see, fireworks were the cause of everything evil in the city, whether it was traffic or exposed utility lines. Everything came back to those evil fireworks.

All these years, I’ve been shaking my head, wondering why these misguided people did not ask for a ban on alcohol in the city, a substance that has proven to be infinitely more dangerous than the few grams of packed powder found in “Monster Parade,” “Piccolo Pete” or any of the other legal fireworks sold in the city.

Why not ban cars? After all, they clog the streets, contribute to global warming, and seriously hurt hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in the city every year.

With legal fireworks, at least the police and firefighters know what to expect and exactly when to expect it and can plan for extra manpower as needed.

No one can plan for the drunk driver who hurts himself or someone else.

There’s another, larger reason for ending the fireworks debate once and for all. That is because it is the single most important three days of the year for thousands of kids in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach.

Whether it is a high school band, a high school swim team or the PTA of an elementary school, the sale of fireworks accomplishes more funding in three days than a month’s worth of bake sales or Christmas wrapping drives.

In the 22 years I have lived in Costa Mesa, not once have I read or heard any fireworks basher offer a workable alternative to replacing the hundreds of thousands of dollars generated by the sale of fireworks that help support these important programs.

Instead, these people are content to throw grenades, bad ones, too, with false claims about the damage done by legal fireworks.

Legal fireworks are safe. They are only unsafe when misused. Similarly, alcohol is safe until misused, too.

The challenge lies not with the legal fireworks that support soccer, Little Leagues and PTAs but with the illegal ones; the ones that shoot up into the air and cause us to say, “Oohh!”

Then they land on someone’s roof and we say, “Uh-oh.”

But that legal vs. illegal fireworks argument is using that logic stuff and that is something the bashers can’t argue against.

So I’m glad the bashers are gone, at least for this year. I’m working one fireworks booth for six hours this year and I don’t need the guilt.

I will, however, support a ban on Piccolo Petes.