Editorial: Let's have a fireworks season

Simon Waters

SHOULD there be a fireworks season?

I think so.

Consider Helen from Whanganui East.

It's Sunday. She has had a big weekend, spent the evening ironing shirts and getting the household shipshape for the week ahead. She manages to get to bed at 10pm and half an hour later she's drifting off into slumberland.

Then it starts. A burst or two of very loud fireworks. Like a guerrilla fighter, they unleash hell for just a few brief minutes, then disappear back into the night. Nobody knows who set them off.

Helen, meanwhile, is now wide awake and vowing to hang draw and quarter whoever is responsible.

It's mid-January and this has been going on every few nights since before November 5, when fireworks went on sale.

Things are worse in the Scott household, where the elderly bulldog is whipped into a frenzy from the loud cracks and bangs. The dog races around barking, waking the household.

Surely it's time the community had a discussion about when it is and is not appropriate to be letting off fireworks. Guy Fawke's night, Christmas and New Year are reasonable, but in recent years that has extended to large chunks of summer, 21st birthdays, social barbecues ... at a whim.

And often they are let off late at night when neighbours could be expected to be asleep.

It's ignorant behaviour and infuriating for those affected.

Not having a civic display does not help.

People buy their own fireworks when there is no public display, and that moves the problem into every nook and cranny of town.

Most people who buy their own fireworks are responsible. But there are always some who aren't.

A fireworks season -- say November 1 to January 2 -- would cover the three main celebrations and still leave numerous days to annoy the neighbours.

And perhaps a 9pm curfew for all except Guy Fawkes, Christmas and New Year.

Outside those dates and times, let us sleep in peace.