Unfiltered Story #410101

I work in police dispatch as a civilian. I had the pleasure of working the nightshift on New Year’s Eve. The city I work for allows the use of fireworks without a permit for New Year’s and our national holiday. Every year, on both of those holidays, we get calls from residents who are utterly shocked to learn that yes, it’s allowed to use fireworks, even during the day and that no, we can’t and won’t do anything about it.

One particular resident called me at around 10:00 p.m. to complain about all the fireworks scaring her dog, causing it to ceaselessly howl and bark. Not uncommon, and I empathize with all pet owners who have to deal with their frightened fur babies. I’m not a fan of fireworks for that exact reason myself, but that’s beside the point.

The reason the call stuck out to me was that she mentioned that she’d have to have a word with our police chief about this situation. I had to calmly explain to her that we as the police aren’t responsible for the laws on our books, we just have to enforce them. So there really wouldn’t be any point in talking to the police chief about this, because if we wanted to punish people for using fireworks when there’s a specific exemption in the law for exactly those dates, we’d be violating the law ourselves.

It always amazes me when I have to tell people that if they’re upset at something that we do or don’t do from a legal standpoint, then they’d have to take that up with their political representatives in the legislative branch, or launch popular initiatives that would put the abolition of or a change to an existing law, or the enactment of a new law up to a vote.