Thursday, July 1
July 1, 2010
Raymond Bourg
July 6, 2010
It will be Independence Day this Sunday in the Tri-parish area. Barbecue pits will be lit. Children will be basking in the abundant summer heat at the nearby swimming pool. And fireworks will blast into the air in celebration of our nation’s now 234 years of freedom.
Well, only if you’re in Lafourche Parish, that is.
That’s because bans on the sale and use of fireworks remain in place in Terrebonne and St. Mary Parishes again this year, which is a bummer to some, but a safety net to the Sheriff’s Offices around the area who don’t want to lose sleep worrying about civilians being injured or homes being damaged due to the explosives.
According to St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesman John Sonnier, a small area of the parish is able to distribute fireworks, but everywhere else is off limits.
“The only place it’s allowed is on the reservation in Charenton, because they are a federal reservation on federal land,” Sonnier said. “But the rest of the parish you can’t have them, and it’s prohibited.”
Sonnier said if a person in St. Mary is found popping fireworks, deputies will likely just confiscate the explosives and give the people involved a warning.
But if repeat offenders surface, charges could be filed against those popping the explosives.
“The charge would be illegal popping of fireworks in St. Mary Parish,” Sonnier said. “We have a parish ordinance that prohibits it, but it usually doesn’t come to that.”
In Terrebonne, a ban is also in place.
Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Vernon Bourgeois said an ordinance has been in place ever since he’s been elected sheriff.
He said revisions to the ordinance existed at one time that allowed fireworks to be used and distributed in the Ward 7 area, but now they are again banned parishwide.
But despite the ban, Bourgeois said his office still receives multiple calls this time of the year.
“We get a lot of calls,” Bourgeois said. “The Fourth of July, New Years, all those fireworks occasions, we get a lot of calls.”
One concern with the bans in place is that with deputies scrambling to take sparklers out of people’s hands, other, more severe crimes may not get as much attention as normal.
“That’s one of the problems,” the sheriff said.
But even despite the extra workload on deputies, the sheriff said he could also see why the ban is still in place.
“There are people with Post-War syndrome and things like that who don’t like them,” he said. “There are elderly who don’t like them. They are in bed at 8 or 9 o’clock, so they can care less about fireworks at New Years. To them, it just keeps them awake … It gets both ends in terms of legalizing it or not legalizing it.”
That leaves Lafourche as the only of the Tri-parishes to allow the use of fireworks.
Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Sgt. Leslie Hill Peters released a statement last week giving the guidelines of fireworks use, as well as safety measures people should take when purchasing or using fireworks.
Lafourche Fireworks Sales
• All firework vendors must be permitted by the parish.
• No sales are allowed to anyone under the age of 10, or anyone intoxicated or impaired.
• No fireworks are to be popped within 1,000 feet of any church, hospital, asylum or public school.
• No fireworks are to be popped within 75 feet of any place where other fireworks are sold.
• No discharging of fireworks are allowed, and anyone throwing fireworks from a motor vehicle could be charged. Throwing fireworks into a motor vehicle are also prohibited.
Legal Sales Dates
June 30 through July 5, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
July 3 and 4, from 9 a.m. to noon
LPSO Firework Safety Reminders
• Never let a child under the age of 12 play with sparklers without adult supervision.
• Never let a child hold more than one lit sparkler at a time.
• Always have a bucket of water nearby for all fireworks use.
• Sparkler wires remain hot long after they go out. Be sure to discard all used sparklers in a bucket of water.
• Never let a child run with a lit sparkler.
• Be sure to show a child how to properly hold the sparkler at arms length.
• Always hand the unlit sparkler to a child first, then light it.
• Light all fireworks outside
LPSO also holding ‘No Refusal’ weekend
In addition to the firework safety measures, Webre also announced this coming weekend will be a “No-Refusal” weekend in Lafourche Parish for anyone who is suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
What “No-Refusal” means is the parish is seeking to have no one refuse a Breathalyzer test when he/she is suspected of DUI.
The parish took a similar initiative during Memorial Day weekend and had no one refuse a test, according to Hill Peters.
“Roughly 5 percent of the people we’ve arrested this year for driving while impaired, think they’re going to get out of the charges by refusing the breath test,” said Webre. “With the cooperation of our judges and DA’s office, if anyone believed to be impaired refuses the test, a judge stands ready to sign a search warrant forcing the issue.”
The crackdown weekend comes in what has been a busy year for drunk driving stops in the parish.
So far in 2010, 216 DUI arrests have been made. That’s pushing closer to the 297 arrests made in all of 2009.
“Our goal is to save lives,” said Webre. “We will continue coming up with creative enforcement tools to get that job done.”
Andrew Pellegrin (left) and Trey Weems (right) survey the shelves inside the selling tent at Loco Joes Fireworks in Galliano. In Lafourche, fireworks are flying off the shelves, but in Terrebonne and St. Mary, the sale of fireworks is banned. * Photo CASEY GISCLAIR
