You may remember last year, in a typical knee-jerk legislative overreaction to a tragic accident, the General Assembly passed, and Gov. Perdue signed into law SB 563, which implemented new measures to regulate, permit and require training for all fireworks shows in the state.
Well, with annual July 4 fireworks displays just around the corner, what is beginning to happen? Cities and towns are having to cancel their shows because of the overly burdensome requirements.
For example — Hatteras and Ocracoke, the very place that triggered the new law.
Dennis Robinson, president of the Hatteras Village Civic Association, which organizes and pays for the Hatteras village fireworks, said the association’s board made a decision in February to cancel this year’s show.
“We have cancelled our show,” said Robinson. “We had the fire company explain all the new regulations and give us an overview and a timeline, such as when the class and training could be and how long it would take to get the necessary permits after that. We reviewed this information and also talked about the money aspect and the liability, and the board came to the consensus not to have the show for 2010.
And for the record, the accident last year had nothing to do with the decision according to Rudy Austin, president of the Ocracoke Business and Civic Association.
I’m pretty sure that as more local communities figure out all these new rules we’ll be hearing much, much more of this in the coming weeks.
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