No fireworks for Juneau?

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Juneau had a Black Lives Matter march last June that drew several hundred people to make demands of the city regarding various policing policies.

Two weeks earlier, the municipality cancelled the annual fireworks show for the Fourth of July. It was too dangerous for people to come downtown to watch the show, even from their cars.

What did Juneauites do? They bought fireworks from Tlingit-Haida Central Council, and shot them off in their own neighborhoods.

Now, the Juneau Assembly is planning to ban all fireworks that make a bang.

Some see this as government creating the first problem (canceling the popular fireworks show downtown) and now trying to solve the problem of personal fireworks use by making the celebration of the nation’s birth illegal.

A draft ordinance is under discussion at the Assembly, modeled after a fireworks policy from before 2016, which generally allowed fireworks between specific hours for New Years Eve and for the Fourth of July, which is Juneau’s high holy day.

Assemblywoman Michelle Bonnet Hale is behind the effort to make novelties like bang-snaps and firecrackers illegal.

The City and Borough changed its fire code in 2016, to prohibit personal use fireworks, but Tlingit Haida owns land near Eaglecrest Ski Area on North Douglas Island, and last year found a way to get some revenue out of the city’s cancelation of the annual fireworks show.

Whether or not Tlingit Haida will give up that new-found revenue is in doubt, and it can declare sovereignty that may not be challenged by the politically sensitive city. The tribal council again set up a fireworks stand on its Fish Creek Road land off of North Douglas Highway over the Christmas holidays. Some fireworks packages sold for as much as $800.

Juneau residents can also get fireworks through mail order and may be creating new family and neighborhood traditions, if the city isn’t doing fireworks shows.

“Notably, this ordinance would only allow nonconcussive saleable fireworks on New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July within the Fire Service Area (Thane to Cohen Drive, and Sandy Beach to N. Douglas Boat Ramp), which is a change from the 2016 era CBJ Fireworks Policy,” the city attorney wrote.

According to the draft ordinance, the fine would go from $300 to $500 for violations of the new fireworks code.

The fireworks ordinance language is at this link, which has the agenda for the Feb. 1 meeting and attached documents:

20 COMMENTS

  1. If it something that somebody enjoys, or that gives pleasure or meaning to somebody’s life, you can be damned sure that there is some dogmatic, rigid, bitter, soulless, nanny-state leftist who wants to ban it.
    The death cult that is contemporary leftism knows no bounds and no limits.

    • Keep em coming Jefferson as we in Juneau are rolling on the floor over your asinine posts. Now “leftism” is a death cult??? Heheh! You have been reading too much of Art Chance, whose bathroom is again breeding Bolsheviks.

      • Contemporary radial leftist totalitarianism is indeed a death cult. Just examine the evidence. EVERYTHING that is destructive, dysfunctional, denormalizing, dehumanizing, and degenerate is lauded and applauded, while everything that is supportive of freedom, free expression, free thought, stability, honesty, societal health, individual initiative and individual autonomy is undermined, subverted and attacked. No other logical conclusion can be reached than that contemporary radical leftism is totalitarian in its goals, and insane in its rationales.

        PS: Why don’t you go try trolling the rigidly censored racial leftist echo-chamber of the Anchorage Daily News, where your kind of rigid and dogmatic hate and intolerance are welcomed?

        • Where you go wrong Jefferson is when you attempt to use “logic” IMO. You also have an interesting take on “hate” and “intolerance” that only you have a handle on. Keep em coming there and watch that bathroom of yours. Heheh!

          • IYO is exactly that: your opinion. In this nation, for now, we are each allowed to have and express opinions (despite the progressive ‘cancel culture’). Facts are an inconvenient thing: the sky is blue, grass is green, progressives are delusional and socialist totalitarianism means destruction of liberty (always just one execution away from utopia). I remind you who was the National Socialist Workers Party. And lest you question my stance, I DO believe in the idealism of communism, but beyond community it does not work.

          • You know, your kind of puerile and purposely antagonizing (not to mention specious and content-free) trolling would not be allowed in most other online forums. That is a courtesy provided by Suzanne here that is certainly NOT provided to even the most truthful, respectful and intelligent posts from opposing viewpoints by any pro-Establishment, pro-leftist, pro-‘woke’ online forums nowadays.

          • Ak, it appears your bathroom is also breeding Bolsheviks. Heheh! Another opinion of mine. And Jefferson wouldn’t know logic if it bit him (also IMO). And by the way, did you have some reason for butting into this conversation? Tough noogies to you.

          • This is a ‘public’ forum and we do still claim freedom of speech, for now, until the progressives move further to ban it. And I’m sure you’ve spent a lot more time (minutes?) reading Engels and Marx cartoons than the writings of Jefferson and Adams. The world would be a much better place if people spent more time emulating Groucho than Karl.

          • Nice opinions there AK but they have nothing to do with the post at hand or “logic.” Of course you knew that and just like to see yourself in print. Heheh!

  2. Hahahahahaha! Hahahaha!
    Hahahahahaha!
    Hahahahahaha!
    Cough cough
    Hahahahaha!
    Hahahaha!
    Thats enough to make me shed tears
    Omigosh Juneau!
    Hahahahaha!
    This is not the same beloved town that produced Rain Country (Ktoo)
    Hahahaha! What has happened to Juneau!? Hahahaha!

  3. Why are fascist always such killjoys?
    Everyone knows that the night of July 3 is a huge community event in Juneau. Wait, I thought ” community ” was important to the leftist?

  4. It’s pretty ironic with what’s going on in the United States today, that people that are colored black, get anything they want. They can break the law and not be charged. Just about 90% of all the commercials on TV nowadays are promoting mixed race couples by having usually a white man with a black colored woman and even mix kids. I guess if they put it out there enough then it will become The New normal. This will make people like Oprah and LeBron James angry when there are no more blacks, only light your skin brown colored people. I turned the sound off during the super bowl commercials because if you watch that and if you noticed it was almost 100% exclusively black colored people in them. I know it’s Black history month, but I’m not sure why there is such a month.

    • Blackness is more far reaching than you may think. I remember, many years ago, a newspaper editorial cartoon where one of George Wallace’s aids was speaking to him. I don’t remember the caption but it went something like, “I don’t know exactly how to tell you this, but we’ve been doing some checking….” This was in the days where, if you had one drop of black blood in you, you were black.
      I have a dilemma. A couple of years ago I had my genome sequenced, and some interesting things came up. Turns out I am 99.6% European and 0.4% Nigerian. Black. Now does this mean that I can claim that I am a black man and take advantage of all those wonderful benefits and privileges to which Greg F. says I am entitled, or must I muck along in the trenches along with my fellow white colleagues, who will probably shun me if they find out I’m black. This would be a big turn around from what undoubtedly is the privileged life I am now living.
      And another thing. I’m in a biracial marriage. My wife is 100%, pure-as-the-driven-snow white. So far, she’s been OK with it.

  5. Can we give Juneau to Canada, seems they have an aversion to freedom and being American? We’d get a do-over with a new road system capitol. Win, win!

  6. The real fireworks in Juneau will be when old Mt. Stinko burps in Lemon Creek. Goodness Sake! The Methane Stench is like from the dark hole of Calcutta. I certainly hope there are no open flames when that happens!

  7. Fireworks are a stupid idea.

    A fire hazard that in best case scenarios leaves garbage scattered around.

Comments are closed.