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Photo By Doug Trapp
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If you buy fireworks in Lawrenceburg, you’re supposed
to use them only on Deno Koumoutsos’ property.
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Indiana fireworks dealers, including those in Lawrenceburg -- the Tristate's semi-legal fireworks mall -- are in a firefight with the Indiana fire marshal.
The fire marshal wants to close the legal loophole thousands of Ohioans drive through every summer to buy fireworks. For several years, Indiana dealers have been forcing customers to buy $2 permits and promise to use their fireworks at dealer-sponsored sites in various Indiana counties. Few people do.
In a lawsuit filed by the fire marshal, a Marion County judge threw out the permit system long used to sell technically illegal bottle rockets, firecrackers and the like.
This latest battle between the Indiana fireworks industry and the state fire marshal could eventually extinguish the retail sale of fireworks there.
The industry got the judge's ruling stayed pending appeal. The appeals court could rule by the end of the year, but a quick resolution seems unlikely, given the turbulence surrounding the issue for the past 15 years.
Playing Both Sides
Even though using fireworks is illegal, in most cases police unofficially tolerate it. After all, violations are rampant and brief, the laws are difficult to enforce and fireworks are traditionally associated with Independence Day.
Two general classes of fireworks are available to the public: sparklers, smoke bombs and other items that don't explode or shoot in the air, known in Indiana as section 8 fireworks. The rest, such as bottle rockets, firecrackers and Roman candles, are known in Indiana as non-section 8 fireworks.
About 10 states prohibit both types, and about the same number allow both, with the 30 or so other states -- such as Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky -- allowing the public sale of section 8 but barring non-section 8, according to John Drewes Jr. of American Fireworks News.
But the laws in those 30 middle states vary, and many have loopholes. Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky prohibit the retail sale of non-section 8 fireworks, but allow their manufacture and allow wholesalers to import, house and ship them to other states.
Kentucky allows the sale of the weaker fireworks in roadside tents, but many dealers also sell the stronger, illegal fireworks. It's difficult for Kentucky's 20 state fire inspectors to check on the 500 permit holders in the weeks before July 4, according to Assistant Kentucky Fire Marshal Carvon Hudson. And the state's meager $5 roadside-tent permit fee doesn't discourage the dealers either, he says.
Ohio's more than 50 dealers can sell fireworks as long as buyers sign a form agreeing to take them out of state. Residents have two days to comply, and non-Ohioans have three.
Beginning in 1985, Indiana's dealers began using the same waivers, according to industry attorney John Brooke. But that system collapsed at the Indiana Supreme Court in the early 1990s after the fire marshal challenged it.
That ruling, however, was not the end of the state's retail fireworks industry. Indiana law allows civic organizations, such as the Lion's Club or Masons, to buy fireworks and hold public displays. So the fireworks industry created its own civic organization, the Indiana Fireworks Users Association (IFUA), and began selling customers $2 permits for "supervised special discharge locations" -- designated areas where the public can shoot fireworks. What began as 11 sites several years ago now includes 31 sites in Indiana's 92 counties. Although Indiana law allows minors to buy fireworks, Brooke says, the IFUA only sells permits to adults and requires them to sign a form agreeing to use the local site. About 150,000 people buy the permits each year, Brooke says.
"Of course, nobody (uses the sites)," says Alden Taylor, spokesman for the Indiana Fire Marshal's office.
Brooke, who represents the IFUA, acknowledges that many users skip the sites, but he blames law enforcement for not aggressively patrolling the streets for illegal fireworks.
Land of the Free (Show)
IFUA's official Dearborn County fireworks site -- where the thousands of people who buy Lawrenceburg fireworks are supposed to go -- is on about 10 acres in Manchester Township, at the county's western edge.
The township isn't the wide-open farms of rural Indiana, nor is it completely suburban. It's a little of both, the target market for riding lawnmowers.
Heading west on State Route 48, past the township's garage-turned-volunteer fire station, convenience store, and church, you soon reach Lake Tambo Road, a narrow stretch of asphalt without a center line. A mile or two on the right is the IFUA site, a farm owned by Deno Koumoutsos, marked by a dented metal mailbox.
Koumoutsos, big, tall and gray-bearded, looks more than a little like an older Ernest Hemingway. But instead of fishing for marlin in Key West or hunting in Africa, Koumoutsos' passion is fireworks. He keeps most of his federally-regulated arsenal -- ranging from simple firecrackers to 6-inch professional shells -- in a metal trailer inspected at least once a year by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The rest reside in a few cabinets in a small barn near his house.
Koumoutsos launches the shells from dense plastic and metal mortars stuck in short, sand-filled barrel sections in a small field not too far from his barn. If a shell explodes prematurely, the pipes and sand direct the force skyward, instead of outward.
In contrast to Lawrenceburg fireworks dealers, Koumoutsos is more than happy to talk to a reporter. Sitting at his kitchen table, Koumoutsos calmly explains his relationship with fireworks and the IFUA.
"I'm an ultrapatriot," he says. "I think the Fourth of July without fireworks isn't the Fourth of July."
But because laws are vague and poorly understood, he says, people use fireworks in small backyards in suburbs and cities.
"That's not the place to shoot that sort of thing," Koumoutsos says.
For one thing, there isn't enough room. Koumoutsos recommends at least 125 feet between fireworks and the nearest building.
This year, hundreds of people came to Koumoutsos' in the weekends leading to July 4, he said.
"I'm paid well for it (by IFUA)," he says, declining to specify how much. The IFUA also compensates the police and fire officials who oversee the evenings, such as Manchester Township Fire Chief Glen Brandt.
"It's a good way to do it, especially for people who don't know how to use them," says Brandt, who vouches for the safety of Koumoutsos' get-togethers. He says the only incident on the site involved a small grass fire that was extinguished in 30 seconds.
"I've shot fireworks since I was 12," Brandt says. "As long as they're used reasonably by adults, I have no problem."
A couple of neighbors don't object to living close to a fireworks site, although Koumoutsos admitted to once using shells that rattled their shelves.
"I don't have any problem with it," says Marvin Benning, who raises cattle and sheep on a farm a few hundred yards away. Koumoutsos warns him before he detonates anything, Benning says.
"It's some excellent fireworks," says neighbor George Bley, who watches from his backyard or on Koumoutsos' lot.
Koumoutsos, whose day job is improving the energy efficiency of buildings, also holds federal explosives permits for road construction and fireworks shows. Every year in Aurora, he puts on one of the largest hand-lit barge shows in the Midwest, he says.
If he could, Koumoutsos would be a full-time pyrotechnician. A grin creeps across his face as he cradles three professional-grade shells, eager to show what they can do.
He inserts one of the shells into a tube in the middle of a sand-filled barrel section. With a road flare, he lights the foot-long fuse. Seconds later, the shell shoots straight up, exploding with the concussion of one of the final shots at a major fireworks show. Koumoutsos' grin widens.
Koumoutsos says the IFUA system of designated sites is the safest way to enjoy fireworks.
"And if it's driven back underground, that element of it will be lost," he says.
But Koumoutsos is not without criticism of fireworks dealers. They could do more to show people how to use their product safely, he says.
"I think if there's anyplace where the fireworks industry has failed, it's education," he says. Koumoutsos suggests full-page newspaper ads outlining safety techniques.
Brooke, the industry attorney, says the associations have produced videos and printed thousands of flyers with safety tips to be distributed at counters. But he acknowledges it's difficult to reach so many people at once.
No Warning Label Is Too Large
Local hospitals report few unusual fireworks injuries this summer, but serious eye injuries are not unheard of. On occasion, people die in fireworks accidents, as did nine people in 1996, after a mentally disabled man lit a display in a fireworks store in Portsmouth, Ohio.
Anthony Albano, associate director of emergency medicine for TriHealth, says Good Samaritan Hospital treated a few fireworks injuries each day during the week leading to July 4. Most of them were minor, such as finger burns, and couldn't be blamed on the fireworks.
"I hate to say it, but it's usually operator failure," Albano says. "They do incredible things with them," including throwing fireworks at each other, or drinking heavily and shooting fireworks.
"That's a bad combination," Albano says.
Local law-enforcement policies seem to reflect a general tolerance of seasonal fireworks, as long as no one complains or uses them in an obviously dangerous way. Although Cincinnati Police will cite people using fireworks, Lt. Ray Ruberg, a public information officer, says it helps if the officer sees it happening.
"A lot of the time, it's something you'll come up on," Ruberg says.
The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office doesn't target fireworks users, and its patrol commander couldn't remember the last time anyone was cited for using fireworks, according to spokesman Steve Barnett.
"Our primary interest is in people selling them and manufacturing them," he says.
Under the Law's Radar
Taylor says Indiana's permit system is a "dodge" of the law. In 1997, the fire marshal asked the courts to determine whether or not Indiana Fireworks Dealers Association (IFDA) and others in the industry were skirting the law by using the permits and designated sites. In January, Marion County Circuit Judge William Lawrence issued a 13-page ruling in favor of the fire marshal. Lawrence echoed the early 1990s ruling against out-of-state waivers, saying the state's prohibition of retail sale of non-section 8 fireworks is definitive; creating a place for public displays doesn't allow dealers to sell retail fireworks to be used at the sites.
One former fireworks store employee says one of the local stores didn't even handle the permits properly. Jenni Clark, 24, of Okeanna, spent some of the past two summers working at a Lawrenceburg fireworks store. But she quit in disgust a few days before July 4.
"That card thing's a joke," Clark says. "The people that I worked for never explained to us what the cards were for."
Clark says the store simply told her to collect the $2 fee for each card.
Brooke counters the IFUA uses six inspectors, known only to him, to check on members and has revoked business memberships for violating association rules.
Change in the Air?
The Indiana General Assembly won't reconvene until January, but its Public Safety Committee is holding meetings about the state's fireworks laws; the next is Aug. 29. It is before this same committee that several industry-backed fireworks bills have died in recent years, according to Brooke.
A major change might come with the help of J. Murray Clark, the running mate for gubernatorial candidate Congressman David McIntosh. A Republican state senator from Indianapolis, Clark is one of the lawyers representing the fireworks industry. The industry's main opponent seems to be the Indiana Fire Chiefs Association, Brooke says.
"We don't really know what they want, except for no fireworks," he says.
So will there ever be a compromise?
"I think there has to be, because nobody wants to continue (the court battles)," Brooke says.
Perhaps more to the point, no law is going to stop the public demand for fireworks.
Although Ohio stopped issuing permits for manufacturers and dealers a few years ago, according to Brooke, Indiana didn't. In 1985, when dealers began using out-of-state waivers to sell fireworks, there were 15 dealers in Indiana. Now there are 400, Brooke says.
"Economically, that tells me there's a market out there," he says.
Some of that market is Ohio residents. Meanwhile, the Indiana fire marshal is eyeing a state law that could allow him to confiscate the bottle rockets, firecrackers and other non-section 8 fireworks in question, according to Taylor. Whether that happens depends on the ruling by the court of appeals, he says.
Koumoutsos says banning fireworks wouldn't make anyone any safer.
"If it's illegal, it will be a black-market item," he says.
Brandt, the Manchester fire chief, doesn't expect any compromise in the near future. Indiana politicians are too caught up in politics to solve the fireworks issue, he says.
Anyway, state laws have their limits; people will hurt themselves by with fireworks whether or not they're legal, he says.
"There's no way you can legislate a way for people to think," Brandt says. ©
