Posted: 7/2/2012 7:41:46 AM EDT
| What the deal with firework in OKC? When I was a kid I used to shoot off firework all time with no problem. But recently I found that it’s actually illegal in OKC to have firework! But every Fourth of July I see peoples shooting tones of stuff, but the police doesn’t seem to bother. I guess if no one complain, it’s ok? |
| If the police have time, they'll come get you if they see you shooting them. Mustang used to let people shoot them off in one of the parks. A couple of years ago Nicoma Park did the same thing. Those are the only places around the metro that allow it anymore that I know of. I would check before going to either because it has been a few years since I've been in the metro for the 4th. |
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Possession, sale and shooting of Fireworks have been illegal in Oklahoma City for quite some time.
Yes, you'll see people all over the city shooting them, but the PD tells everyone who complains to call the FD. The FD will dispatch a Fire Marshal to handle the complaint. There are a total of 13 Fire Marshals for all of Oklahoma City. I used to get at least 8 hours of overtime every year on the 4th of July and New Years eve just driving from one side of the city to the other responding to complaints that were 95% of the time gone before I was able to get to them. The first statement that usually comes up is, "But they sell them at NE 50th & I-35 every year." Yes, they do, but that one little corner is NOT Oklahoma City. It is Oklahoma County and falls under the jurisdiction of the State Fire Marshal. They can sell fireworks there all day long and it's legal. As soon as you cross the road back into Oklahoma City, they are illegal and subject to citation and seizure. I don't think the laws have changed since I retired, but if anyone is interested you can find information in Chapter 20 of the Oklahoma City Municipal Ordinances which may also make reference to the NFPA standards and the current adopted Fire Code. |
| I've lived here for a long time...it's been illegal since I moved here. I guess it's a matter if you get caught or not...we usually have several people in our neighborhood shooting them with no police showing up. Last year one house down the street shot off a near commercial sized show and no police. |
| I suspect the city would argue it's a matter of priority instead of non enforcement. By making it illegal a large percentage of the people will obey the law which leaves a smaller percentage of people who do it anyways. So they come out ahead without even having to enforce the law. I suspect if someone was being obnoxious with their firework shooting and someone complained they would send an officer but otherwise your pretty safe. Of course if your unlucky enough to light off the mega-monster-extravaganza-yeti blinder as a cruiser drives by you might get a nasty-gram from them. |
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Why have laws on the books if the police will not enforce ? One of the biggest reasons is that the PD won't deal with it if they don't have to. Another is that it's a violation of Chapter 20 which are municipal fire ordinances and are primarily enforced by the Fire Marshal's Office. Although they have the authority, they won't mess with it unless it's a really serious problem or called for assistance by a Fire Marshal. I've never even seen an officer write a ticket for parking in a Fire Lane. Even if they called in every police officer that worked for the department and put them on the street just for the 4th of July there would not be enough officers to handle each violator. Before I went to the FMO, I was stationed out in SE Okc. We were out putting out grass fires one night and heard a full magazine dump from a machinegun and looked up just in time to see a line of tracers in the air less than a mile away. I spoke with a couple of the Helicopter pilots one day. They told me that on those two days, they stay on the ground. Too much stuff flying through the air. |
Although we will not be doing anything until we get some serious moisture, I can only say how nice it is to live in open county and be able to do whatever the ?$/%+# we want. 
I imagine we'll put it off and have a nice biggun later on in the year. We do, however, still have our aerials which we didn't use last year for the exact same reason. 
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I can tell you if you are an 11 year old kid popping black cats in your neighborhood park a police officer will come and cuff you, pat you down asking what kind of drugs and weapons you have, and tell you you are starting out on a life of crime young and will turn into a career criminal, then proceed to put you in his patrol car and try to take you to jail until your mother shows up because the neighbor saw everything happening.
Ask me how I know  
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Quoted:
I can tell you if you are an 11 year old kid popping black cats in your neighborhood park a police officer will come and cuff you, pat you down asking what kind of drugs and weapons you have, and tell you you are starting out on a life of crime young and will turn into a career criminal, then proceed to put you in his patrol car and try to take you to jail until your mother shows up because the neighbor saw everything happening. Ask me how I know The beginning of your life of hardened crime?
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I think it just a dumb law overall. I can see why you don’t want people shooting fireworks year round, but not allowing it ever on Fourth of July is really un-American. It’s a matter of freedom! Either let peoples do firework maybe between July 3-5 or offer some kind of permit. There would always be stupid peoples doing stupid thing no matter what we do to prevent it.
Our Founding Fathers would roll in their graves seeing this. USA! USA! USA! USA! |
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I think it just a dumb law overall. I can see why you don’t want people shooting fireworks year round, but not allowing it ever on Fourth of July is really un-American. It’s a matter of freedom! Either let peoples do firework maybe between July 3-5 or offer some kind of permit. There would always be stupid peoples doing stupid thing no matter what we do to prevent it. Our Founding Fathers would roll in their graves seeing this. USA! USA! USA! USA! They already have ! More than once 
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Quoted:
I can tell you if you are an 11 year old kid popping black cats in your neighborhood park a police officer will come and cuff you, pat you down asking what kind of drugs and weapons you have, and tell you you are starting out on a life of crime young and will turn into a career criminal, then proceed to put you in his patrol car and try to take you to jail until your mother shows up because the neighbor saw everything happening. Ask me how I know HOW DO YOU KNOW??? 
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The fireworks ban was created many years ago because of fires and loss of property caused by fireworks. I can remember being dispatched to a house fire with a wooden shingle roof that had been set on fire when fireworks landed on the roof. It was a windy day and the next thing we knew we had five houses on fire at the same time within a one block radius.The citizens of Oklahoma City made complaints to the City Councilmen about the "dangers" of fireworks. Also backing the ordinance and the argument to the Council were statistics collected from the area hospitals about fireworks related injuries.They listened and there ya go. Or should I say there they went?
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yes, there they went.
along with 10$ asbestos brake shoes. (what, they think we're gonna chew on em?) a asbestos based gasket that used to be $2 is some graphite/boron composite $35 piece now. and they leak. pesticides that won't kill a pest, the good stuff's outlawed.(try to buy some diazanon) tylenols that are 1/2 strength because somebody took 100 a day and had liver failure. antihistimines that WORK (drixoral , contac) have to be bought in Canada or Mexico (shudder). i had a black cat go off in my hand once. once. didn't happen again, and i didn't need help learning that. bought a gray market Canadian car once, and the windshield and lenses that was perfectly acceptable for the ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD was not good enough for the U.S. we must be protected from ourselves, because if our goverment didn't protect us we couldn't survive as a nation for 236 years. oh, wait we HAVE survived for 236 years, MOSTLY without a big foot up our help i guess we get stupider while the govement gets smarter. thats why most individuals MAKE money and the goverment LOSES money can i get a amen!? oh,and banned fireworks? probaby wasn't a big enough bribe for such a limited selling season. |
