GILROY
– In front of Jess and Dolores Perez’ charred Gilroy home, there
is one of life’s bitter ironies – underneath a red placard from the
fire department that says the house is unsafe, lies a broken wind
chime that reads
”
Bless this house and all who enter.
”
GILROY – In front of Jess and Dolores Perez’ charred Gilroy home, there is one of life’s bitter ironies – underneath a red placard from the fire department that says the house is unsafe, lies a broken wind chime that reads “Bless this house and all who enter.”
The burned roof of the Perez’ El Toro Way home is one of several other casualties endured on the Fourth of July in Gilroy – Santa Clara County’s only city where fireworks are legal.
An illegal firework, likely a bottle rocket, landed on the Perez roof July 4 as they were enjoying the annual Gilroy fireworks show from the vantage point of their son’s house near Gilroy High School.
“The whole time we had a fireworks show at our house,” Jess Perez said, less than two weeks after his home of 48 years nearly burned to the ground.
In their backyard, sitting on lawn chairs under the shade of the family RV they’re living in for now, the Perezes can consider themselves lucky. No one was hurt, some valuables were saved, they have insurance, and firefighters responded quickly enough to save all four walls of the structure, making renovation possible.
Even Hoochie Perez, the family dog who took shelter in her doghouse during the blaze, has come out of her state of shock.
“It took her days to come out of it,” Dolores Perez said. “The dog was so scared just by the fireworks she stayed in her doghouse when the fire was going on.”
Hoochie’s innate reservations for the holiday explosives are being met by at least one Gilroy City Councilman, Bob Dillon. At a City Council meeting last week, Dillon said Gilroy should consider making fireworks illegal.
“I’d be surprised if I had one vote besides mine to do anything about it, but I want to bring it to my colleagues’ attention and see if it’s time to do something about this,” Dillon said.
Dillon will find support from at least some El Toro Way residents. Perez neighbors Petra and Elena Castaneda gave their support for a fireworks ban.
“I think they should be illegal. We were scared,” said Elena Castaneda, who heard there was a fire on her street from the police scanner in her brother’s car. “We didn’t know until we arrived if our house was burning or not.”
Jess Perez gives a clear direction for City Council.
“I have two words: Outlaw them,” the retiree said.
The ramifications involved with enforcing those clear hopes are complex.
This year, 16 nonprofit groups – from the GHS cheerleader booster club and Pop Warner football to law enforcement officer support groups and an American Legion post – used profits from fireworks booths to raise funds for their groups. Fireworks can be sold in Gilroy from three days before the Fourth of July through the holiday.
“Way more than half our fund-raising revenue comes from the fireworks sales,” GHS cheerleader booster Jeff Orth said. “If it went away, it would be a real tragedy for a lot of local agencies.”
The fund-raising benefits brought to Gilroy over the years and an overall low number of tragic July 4 incidents prior to those in 2003, Gilroy Mayor Tom Springer says, are the reasons he would not vote for a fireworks ban if it came before Council.
“At some point, we need to deal with this as a common sense issue and a personal responsibility issue,” Springer said. “Suppose we ban fireworks next year and someone uses them anyway and a house burns down. What do we do next, ban matches?”
Rhetorical extremes aside, Orth said he would support stiffer penalties for people who use illegal fireworks or misuse legal ones. Currently, illegal use of fireworks can result in a minor infraction up to a felony, depending on a variety of factors such as how many fireworks were used and how much explosive the fireworks contained.
A recent editorial in The Dispatch supported setting up a hotline to make it easier for residents to report illegal fireworks. Legal – or ‘safe and sane’ – fireworks do not leave the ground or explode. Fireworks like bottle rockets, firecrackers and M-80s do not fit that description and are illegal.
Springer echoed the editorial’s sentiments.
“If the people of Gilroy want to keep their ability to use safe-and-sane fireworks, they need to step up to the plate and tell their family, friends and neighbors to stop using the illegal ones,” Springer said. “That’s the message that needs to get out.”
But the message may not get very far given the tragedies of July 4, 2003.
A second structure fire was caused when a legal fireworks device burned a juniper bush outside an apartment, fire department officials believe.
A fire truck on patrol for illegal fireworks was hit head on by a Hecker Pass motorist who was killed in the collision.
In addition to the structure fires, seven vegetation fires were started by fireworks July 4. Emergency personnel were so overburdened July 4 that all of the crews that finished their shifts had to be called back and put on overtime. The financial cost of additional staffing and vehicle use tallied a nearly $6,000 price tag for the city.
The financial burden can be overcome, but operational issues linger. Gilroy Fire Department analyst Geoff Cady said 42 illegal fireworks related calls between 1 p.m. and midnight July 4 went unanswered because personnel were responding to other calls.
More than 3,000 illegal fireworks devices were collected in Gilroy nonetheless, but firefighters estimated they got one-tenth the amount confiscated in past years.
“We responded to 15 calls (on the Fourth of July) just from 1 p.m. to midnight. That’s an astronomical number compared to 5.6 calls during a normal 24-hour period,” Cady said.
Gilroy Fire Chief Jeff Clet said his department will not get involved in the politics of banning or permitting fireworks.
“I work for the City Administrator and the City Council, but my professional opinion is we’re much better off banning them,” Clet said. “Having legal fireworks does not match our mission statement.”
Clet, who spent 22 years with the San Jose Fire Department before taking his Gilroy post, says most fireworks-related fires are in fact caused by the types of fireworks already made illegal. However, Clet says where there are legal fireworks, illegal ones usually follow.
Clet said it was his experience in San Jose, where fireworks were made illegal years ago, that enforcement becomes easier when all fireworks are banned.
“It’s always going to be more difficult to enforce when you have legal fireworks mixed with illegal ones,” Clet said. “When they’re all illegal, you just get less users.”
