As ghouls, goblins and other creatures prepare to roam the streets of Burnaby Friday night, police officers and firefighters will be keeping a close eye on Halloween celebrations taking advantage of the city’s one-night-only fireworks policy.
Every year around mid-October, fireworks shops start cropping up in empty commercial spaces all over the city. With flashy, oversized signs posted on the storefronts, the businesses are hard to miss.
Burnaby is one of only a few remaining municipalities in the Lower Mainland that still allows the sale of fireworks during the Halloween season. Fireworks can be sold between Oct. 25 and 31 each year, according to the Burnaby fire services bylaw. This year, the fire department issued 19 vendors permits to sell fireworks and there are five additional permits pending.
While there has been talk in recent years of banning the sale of fireworks (the most recent was at a March 18, 2013 council meeting after the Heights Merchants Association sent a letter to council voicing its concerns about the fly-by-night fireworks stores’ signage) the city has continued to allow the sale of fireworks, often saying a ban wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of fireworks in Burnaby.
Both the Burnaby Fire Department and RCMP say fireworks aren’t as big of a problem as they once were.
Greg Mervin, the Burnaby Fire Department’s chief fire prevention officer, said there’s been a noticeable downturn in fireworks-related problems in the past few years and this year is shaping up to be no different.
“We’ve had no issues yet this year,” he told the NOW.
In the event fireworks are set off before Oct. 31, it is within the jurisdiction of the Burnaby RCMP to handle any complaints that come in. If officers determine fireworks are being set off on a day other than Halloween, the fireworks are seized.
So far this year, however, there have been no significant problems or complaints, according to Staff Sgt. Maj. John Buis.
Buis said he’s noticed far fewer fireworks set off across the Lower Mainland compared to a decade ago, but with Halloween happening on a Friday this year it could mean a resurgence of the popular pyrotechnic displays.
Whether the decline means the regulations laid out in the bylaw are discouraging people from buying and using fireworks, it’s hard to say – the city’s last report on the sale of fireworks was completed in 2012 and nothing new has been published on the subject since then.
Across the border in New Westminster, the sale of fireworks has been banned for 10 years following city council’s outcry that fireworks were causing “havoc” in neighbourhoods. At the height of the issue in 2003, the police department recorded 128 fireworks-related complaints.
But the ban doesn’t prohibit residents from setting off fireworks on Halloween.
According to the city’s fire protection bylaw, from 4 p.m. on Oct. 31 to Nov. 1 at 12 a.m. residents in the Royal City are allowed to set off low-hazard fireworks, including pin-wheels, golden rain, lawn lights, showers and fountains and volcanoes. Roman candles and firecrackers are banned in New West.
Burnaby and New Westminster require that all fireworks discharged on Halloween are done so by an adult 18 years or older and on private property with the owner’s consent.
In either city, residents can detonate fireworks on days other than Halloween (for celebration purposes) as long as they apply for a permit through the local fire department.
