GILROY
– San Jose-bound Fire Chief Jeff Clet will be leaving Gilroyans
with something to remember him by – a new law aimed at avoiding the
hellish Fourth of July that became the lowlight of Clet’s short
career here.
By ERIC LEINS and
PETER CROWLEY
Staff Writers
GILROY – San Jose-bound Fire Chief Jeff Clet will be leaving Gilroyans with something to remember him by – a new law aimed at avoiding the hellish Fourth of July that became the lowlight of Clet’s short career here.
City Council joined fireworks wholesalers and retailers Monday in praising Clet’s proposal that would not ban all fireworks from the city but would make it harder to set off illegal ones.
Illegal fireworks are those that shoot into the air, move on the ground or explode, such as bottle rockets, Roman candles or cherry bombs.
The proposed education, enforcement, fire suppression and damage mitigation efforts would require an extra $30,000 in fire, police and fire marshal staffing and overtime. To pay for this, Clet’s plan would charge fireworks customers a fee of roughly 8 percent of the purchase price. An $8 box of sparklers will cost an additional 65 cents. On a $50 package with fancier pyrotechnic prowess, it would add $4.
City Councilmen gave the plan a preliminary thumbs-up approval Monday. Gilroy is the only city in Santa Clara County that allows fireworks of any kind within its limits. It would be one of three cities in California that charges a fee to offset damage costs.
“Lesser men would have taken the easy way out and banned them. Thank God we don’t have a lesser man running our fire department,” Jeff Orth, who for nine years has sold fireworks to benefit the Gilroy High School cheerleaders, said at the Council meeting. “While none of the booth operators are excited to do the heavy lifting, we’re in support of this plan.”
In Gilroy, so-called “safe-and-sane” fireworks – such as sparklers, pinwheels and cones – are legal to sell on the days preceding the Fourth of July holiday. Last year, 16 nonprofit organizations, from Orth’s cheerleaders and youth football to the Gilroy Police Officers Association, obtained permits to sell fireworks in the city.
Clet’s plan got its spark from July 4, 2003. During a tense 10-hour period that day, the Gilroy Fire Department responded to nine fires – the number it usually responds to in a month. Both legal and illegal fireworks caused the seven vegetation fires and two structure fires, which resulted in $425,000 in damage.
Some were initially skeptical of Clet’s proposal because it makes legal firework retailers pay for damage often caused by users of illegal fireworks. Nevertheless, it got full-fledged backing Monday night by retailers.
“We’re very grateful that the fire chief and the chief of police are being so proactive in tackling the illegal fireworks, which are really the problem,” Orth told The Dispatch later. “It just means that less fireworks are going to get sold, … a little less money is going to go to the charity.”
Customers generally don’t buy fireworks based on quantity, Orth said; instead, they “typically … have in mind, ‘This is how much I’m going to spend on fireworks.’ ” Now they’ll get less for that amount.
Last July, the Pop Warner youth football and cheerleading league’s fireworks booth raised $21,347 – nearly a quarter of its $90,945 budget in 2003, according to league Treasurer Nora Dipko.
“If we didn’t have our fireworks booth, I don’t think there would be a Pop Warner football league here,” league President Rich Salazar said Tuesday. He called Clet’s plan “something we’ve got to do.”
“It’s either that, or we’re not going to have fireworks,” Salazar said. “It’s going to have a little bit of impact, but hey, we’ve got to go along with it.”
The proposed plan calls for more public education of illegal fireworks danger through channel 17, printed media, “zero tolerance” signage and postings at areas not approved for fireworks use.
On the enforcement side of things, the plan calls for three joint enforcement teams composed of three police officers, a fire investigator, an evidence technician, 10 additional police department personnel and a telephone hotline.
“We’ve increased the number of enforcement units on the street by basically threefold,” Clet said Tuesday.
For fire suppression, three additional fire engines, four chief officers and 18 additional firefighters would be on duty. Two additional dispatchers would also be on duty.
To put the plan into action, Council is expected to formally approve an amendment to city code at an upcoming meeting.
Clet said the city is committed to re-evaluating the plan after every subsequent July 4.
“I think this is going to be successful,” he said of the plan.
