Whizz, bang, it's patriotic pyrotechnics time

In a small pole shed, neatly perched against an expanse of green swales and somber blue sky near Worley, Randy Adrian sells stuff that explodes.

Adrian, who owns Thunder Junction, a fireworks stand south of the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Casino on U.S. 95, has been in the business of boom for more than a decade.

His fireworks stand used to be in the Lovell Valley before he moved it to Worley. A few years ago he changed the name and built a new site on his family’s wheat ground just off the highway north of town.

Business has been good leading up to the Fourth of July, said Adrian. But he’s aware of the critics, the pyrotechnics police who shake their heads at enterprises like his, so he focuses on the bright side: A lot of people love blowing stuff up, and he provides the means to the mayhem.

“Artillery shells, mortars,” Adrian mused. “Lake people like those… and rockets.”

His shop sells packages, some of them 4 feet tall and cellophane- wrapped, that hold a variety of flashing, shooting, banging sky busters, as well as shelves of smaller, children-friendly Independence Day whistle sticks.

In his 15 years selling fireworks, he has received no complaints, and no feedback of fires started, or injuries sustained, from his products.

“I always tell them to be careful,” he said. “If you’re going to be in the trees, those probably aren’t a good idea.”

Although the state attorney general submitted an opinion this week denouncing as illegal the sale of aerial fireworks, including many sold on Indian reservations across the state, the opinion does not change fireworks laws or how departments enforce them.

“The analysis is simply a legal opinion on Idaho’s existing fireworks laws,” according to a press release from Attorney General Lawrence Wasden. “It does not change any laws. It is not a ban, a ruling, a decision or a directive.”

The state’s law enforcement agencies are given discretion on how to enforce the law.

“Some law enforcement agencies may agree with the analysis and change their enforcement policies,” Wasden wrote. “Others may ignore it.”

The Tribe has its own rules regarding fireworks sales, Adrian said. They do not concur with the AG’s opinion. Vendors can open in June, but must close July 5, and aerial rockets, mortars and flashbangs are fine.

And that’s fine with Adrian, and with Jackson Louie who operates Smoke Signals on the south side of Worley.

Louie’s top sellers, the Excalibur and Assassin, 60-gram mortars, are loaded into a tube and shot into the sky.

“Those are big block rockers,” Louie said. “They thump at the bottom and there’s a huge explosion in the sky.”

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe has designated several fireworks areas in Worley and Plummer, but Plummer Chief of Police Les Hall, the custodian of law in the city of Plummer where the Coeur d’Alene Tribe is headquartered, said Fourth of July is a fireworks fracas.

That hasn’t changed much in his 19 years as the city’s police chief.

“Every year is the same thing,” Hall said. “Sometimes it dies down. It just depends.”

At other times he can hear the percussions at his house more than a mile from town.

“Nothing has really changed,” he said. “So far this year I haven’t gotten that many complaints.”

He often warns revelers to tone the noise down, but doesn’t usually issue citations. People generally comply, he said.

The big aerial boomers sold on the reservation are illegal in Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County where law enforcement personnel often respond to complaints, but just as Hall in Plummer, warnings are the preferred method of handling grievances.

“We get a significant amount of calls around the Fourth of July,” Coeur d’Alene Police Detective Jared Reneau said. “We don’t generally issue a lot of citations.”

Officers don’t usually see the perpetrators firsthand and when police roll onto a scene the hullabaloo is often over.

“Usually we warn people, and that resolves the problem,” Reneau said.

Kootenai County is in a similar fireworks quagmire around the Fourth and although county code allows deputies to cite for violations of the fireworks law, which prohibits blasting after midnight, throwing fireworks from moving vehicles or using them where they can start a fire, citations are rare.

“We prioritize and respond to calls for service as normal with in-progress and crimes against persons having priority,” Detective Dennis Stinebaugh of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office said. “We will respond to firework complaints as deputies become available.”

Coeur d’Alene firefighters are on alert during the annual summer fireworks palooza, and their jobs of regulating the city’s 11 licensed fireworks stands starts before the holiday, and includes regular visits to vendors from start-up in June to the business’ July 5 teardown.

“We do three to four inspections on each stand,” Craig Etherton, Coeur d’Alene Fire Investigator said.

Only designated Safe and Sane fireworks are allowed in the greater Coeur d’Alene area. Anything that shoots higher than 15 feet, or shoots sparks while buzzing and swirling in more than a 12-foot diameter is against the law.

So far this month there have been two fireworks-caused fires, Etherton said. He can’t recall any recent medical emergencies from fireworks mishaps in his jurisdiction.

“We don’t see that, that often,” Etherton said. “I think we’ve been doing a good job educating people.”

Back in Worley, in the Thunder Junction fireworks stand, Adrian ponders a question pyrotechnic novices often pose as they ponder a purchase.

“Which ones are the best?” He asked himself with a puzzled grin. “That’s like asking which pizza is the best.”

He looked at the stocked shelves around him and raised his hands.

“They are all good,” he said.