Jason Robinette came home July 5 to find his Hanna Street yard
littered with spent fireworks. A few days later, the letter came: a
$250 administrative citation for illegal explosives.
Gilroy – Jason Robinette came home July 5 to find his Hanna Street yard littered with spent fireworks. A few days later, the letter came: a $250 administrative citation for illegal explosives.
“Seems like they should have to get people’s names and IDs before they start handing out fines,” said Robinette, sounding peeved. He plans to contest the fine.
Across town, Elisa Torres-Fernandez isn’t happy either. She and her husband were home July 4, when teens caroused on their Chestnut Street block, tossing fireworks left and right, she said. Within days, the same notice showed up in her mailbox.
“Are we supposed to control everything that happens on our block?” she asked rhetorically.
Complaints like their’s echoed throughout the city last summer, when City Council adopted administrative citations for fireworks – an attempt to quash illegal pyrotechnics on the Fourth of July.
City Fire Marshal Jackie Bretschneider said the administrative citations, which are issued by address, not by name, are an easier way to cut down on Independence Day explosives. The burden of proof is lower, and so are the penalties: Unlike a criminal fireworks charge, officers or firefighters don’t have to prove who owns the fireworks, and the offense doesn’t show up on a criminal record. Residents are charged $250 for the first offense, $500 for the second and $750 for the third.
Forty-two such citations were issued this July 4, two of them to the same house, Bretschneider said. Since then, one citation has been dropped. (The home was outside city limits.) Roughly the same number were issued last year, the first time administrative citations went into effect.
Police also arrested 18 people this year for illegal fireworks possession, a misdemeanor that requires officers to prove exactly who owns the explosives – a tricky issue, because fireworks don’t tend to stay put.
Administrative citations “are really a kinder, gentler way to deal with it,” said Bretschneider. “Those criminal charges cost more money, it goes on your record, and it’s really a more severe situation.”
Yet the citations have provoked furor from some residents, who call them unfair. One Snowberry Court resident, Robert Bischoff, wrote the Dispatch complaining that four officers took down his address, instead of just arresting the perpetrators; a Carmel Street resident, Annie Altamirano, phoned the newspaper last year, after her address was listed for illegal fireworks in the Dispatch. She claimed that firefighters cited her home after a neighbor tied legal, safe-and-sane fireworks to a bicycle – but those firefighters never approached her directly to tell her to stop, she said.
“I’m very frustrated at the way they handled it,” Altamirano said in a September interview. “This is our last year of buying fireworks at all.”
“I’m leaving town,” echoed Bischoff. “I’m not even going to be here. If there’s anything that goes off anywhere within half a mile of my house, they’ll look up my name and slap with me with another citation.”
Residents will have a chance to contest the citations at August hearings, but “there are very limited situations that provide for a successful appeal,” letters to those cited warned. Unless the person cited doesn’t own the home or can prove that the fireworks were going off elsewhere, the fine stands, said Bretschneider. If all citations are paid, the city stands to gain $10,750 in fines.
“It’s stupid to contest the fine,” said Bischoff. “You’re going to go to a hearing when the officer will be called in, and it’s your word against his. What am I going to prove? How can I prove anything?”
Olga Rodriguez, a Rosanna Street resident, said she plans to appeal her citation.
“I shouldn’t be paying for something that wasn’t mine,” said Rodriguez, claiming that neighboring kids set off fireworks near her yard. “They didn’t even stop to question me, and now they want me to pay $250?”
Bretschneider was disappointed that citation numbers didn’t drop this year. She’d hoped that the new fines would dampen Gilroyans’ pyromania on the Fourth, and had sent targeted letters to last year’s problem areas. Bischoff got one, he remembered. But as firefighters and police responded to 144 fireworks-related calls July 4, it seemed the lesson hadn’t sunk in.
Criminal fireworks charges
were made against:
Ruben Reyes, Lawrence and Wren avenues
Robert Yamat – 904 Feragalli Ct.
Juan Daniel Garcia – Johnson Way and Princevalle Street
Randy Sawato Soda – 733 La Paloma Way
Gregory Edward Judie – 943 Moro Ct.
Freddy Mendez – 9050 Kern Ave.
Saina Walker Lepulu – 903 Alder St.
Sivasa Turner Laupati – 903 Alder St.
Gabriel Rodriguez – Johnson Way and Princevalle Street
Jamie Mosley – 9167 El Verano Way
Frank Haro – 1249 Willow Ct.
Marlowe Brinson – 711 Vinca Ct.
Matthew Calimpong – 1475 Bay Tree Dr.
Hector Delacerda – 1488 Partridge Dr.
Victoria Lynn Potman – 995 Brook Way
Jeffrey Brian Aviles – 8065 Wren Ave.
Alberto Sanchez – Kern and Welburn avenues
Manuel Garcia – 570 E. Seventh St.
Administrative citations for fireworks were issued to:
139 Church St.
183 Las Animas Ave. – Cited twice
231 Ronan Ave.
338 Church St.
350 W. Ninth St.
390 Eighth St.
415 Gavilan Ct.
500 IOOF Ave.
621 Ronan Ave.
896 Sorrento Court
6341 Snowberry Ct.
6379 Snowberry Ct.
6690 Imperial Dr.
6770 Princevalle St.
8001 Church St.
8371 Delta Dr.
9165 Kern Ave.
9445 Kern Ave. – Canceled – Outside city limits
144 Lewis St.
512 Hadley Ct.
560 Ronan Ave.
620 Ronan Ave.
690 Antonio Ct.
1138 Monte Bello Dr.
1161 Driftwood Ct.
5458 Mesa Road
7320 Hagen Ct.
7350 Orchard Dr.
7419 Alexander St.
7450 Alexander St.
7476 Chestnut St.
7560 Santa Teresa Boulevard
7604 Los Padres Court
7651 Hanna St.
7680 Rosanna St.
7691 Santa Barbara St.
7710 Hanna St.
7723 Laurel Dr.
7792 Chestnut St.
7860 Driftwood Court
8770 Floral St.
