Instead of Establishing Their Own Regulations, Crescent City Harbor Plans To Ask County to Modify Its Fireworks Ordinance

Thumbnail photo by Jessica Cejnar Andrews

Though he anticipates room for improvement, Del Norte County Sheriff Garrett Scott says there will be enhanced law enforcement on patrol to avoid a repeat of last year’s explosion that sent 14 people to the hospital.

But while Scott and a committee of other local officials continue to prepare for this year’s Independence Day festivities, the Crescent City Harbor commissioners have decided they don’t have the resources to enforce their own fireworks regulations.

Though Harbormaster Mike Rademaker submitted a draft ordinance modeled on the State Fireworks Law to the Harbor District Board, commissioners on Tuesday directed staff to ask Del Norte County officials to modify the ordinance they’ve had on the books since October.

They’re hoping to include some of the port’s more sensitive areas, such as the marina, in a fireworks ban, Rademaker told Redwood Voice Community News on Thursday. The county’s ordinance currently prohibits all fireworks, including Safe and Sane fireworks, in its parks and campgrounds.

Rademaker said Del Norte County has more resources than the Harbor District. There will likely be some “back channel” discussions, but he anticipates the topic will go before Harbor commissioners again at another public meeting.

“It would obviously be up to the Board of Supervisors if they would agree with the position of the harbor,” he said Thursday. “It’s just really tough with our financial situation to take on these kinds of matters, even though they are a huge public interest and there are tremendous safety concerns.”

On Tuesday, Rademaker told commissioners that the ordinance he was proposing is consistent with Del Norte County’s ordinance as well as Crescent City’s regulations, which would make it easier to enforce. The Harbor District would also be able to recoup revenue from the administrative fines it establishes, he said.

But the proposal drew negative feedback with one commissioner stating it was full of holes and another recommending a more tailored approach. Rademaker also said the Harbor District would likely outsource enforcement of the ordinance.

“I don’t plan on having our patrol staff give out these citations and having it as [part of the] Harbor District appeals process,” he said. “We would probably outsource that to the county.”

Crescent City, Del Norte County and Harbor District officials began discussing ways to stem the flow of illegal fireworks into their community after the July 4, 2024 mass casualty incident on South Beach. A 3-year-old boy was among the 14 people hospitalized and the sheriff’s office arrested two individuals as a result.

According to Commissioner Rick Shepherd, the explosion took place on land that was not in the Harbor District’s jurisdiction.

As a result, the city, county and Harbor District created a Fourth of July committee aimed at stemming the flow of illegal fireworks into Del Norte County. In addition to the sheriff, committee members include two county supervisors, two harbor commissioners, two Crescent City councilors, the harbormaster and the California Highway Patrol.

On Tuesday, Evans said he was part of that committee, though he was unaware that Del Norte County had approved a fireworks ordinance in October and Crescent City has had regulations on the books since 2012.

In September, Harbor Commissioners directed staff to draft an ordinance banning all fireworks in the marina and at Whaler Island Groin. They stated that they would be amenable to allowing Safe and Sane fireworks on the section of beach that falls within their jurisdiction.

On Tuesday, Shepherd continued to call for a ban on all fireworks in the marina.

“I want to make it more safe for the boats and the [inner] boat basin,” he said. “We’ve had bottle rockets in fish holds, there’s gas down there, it’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

According to Rademaker’s staff report, Del Norte County’s ordinance included banning all fireworks, including the Safe and Sane kind, at campgrounds and parks. Fines for people violating the ordinance start at $1,000 for a first offense and escalate to $3,000 for repeat offenses.

Under state law, 65 percent of those fines are required to be forwarded to the State Fire Marshal Fireworks Enforcement and Disposal Fund. Seized fireworks must also be reported to Cal Fire within three days and are held in trust for the agency.

Much of the negative feedback Rademaker received on the proposed ordinance Tuesday came from Dan Schmidt, who, along with Evans, took his Harbor Commission seat in January.

According to Schmidt, the proposed ordinance was full of holes. It doesn’t include a definition of what a violation is, he said, and requires the Harbor District to turn over confiscated fireworks — evidence — to the State Fire Marshal’s office.

Schmidt, who is an attorney, asked Rademaker about the cost of training and supervision, how a violation gets reported and who a hearing officer would be.

Schmidt said he also didn’t want Harbor District staff involved with enforcing the ordinance.

“I would be very reluctant to have any harbor employee going out to some remote part of South Beach or North Beach and encounter an out-of-towner with a pickup truck loaded with thousands of dollars of fireworks intended to launch an Iwo Jima type of assault on the community and expect them to enforce this,” he said. “It requires a lot of training to know how to approach somebody, arrest them, gather evidence, prepare citations and testify in court.”

Schmidt argued that if the county has an ordinance, the Crescent City Harbor District either doesn’t need one or it can create regulations that are “narrowly tailored.” He also proposed working with the Del Norte County Fairgrounds to have a centralized fireworks festival.

While she agreed that things got out of hand last year, Schmidt’s colleague Annie Nehmer said she likes the mayhem. People will be cited for having illegal fireworks, she said, not the Safe and Sane kind.

“There’s never been a boat to catch on fire, but it does cause damage to the harbor asphalt,” she said. “It does cause time for maintenance to clean it up, so there are expenses the harbor is incurring with this situation. This [ordinance] is against the illegal fireworks, not that there aren’t holes in it.”

Evans suggested that charging a nominal fee for parking at the inner boat basin on July 4 could offset the cost of damage to the pavement as well as cleanup costs.

Rademaker said he and Evans had discussed erecting barricades to block some vehicular access at the harbor during the Fourth of July. One suggestion includes having cars turn right only from Citizens Dock to U.S. 101 to avoid traffic jams. Rademaker said he anticipates further discussions with the sheriff to guide the Harbor District’s policy making.

“Then I think we’ll bring it back to the Board and maybe get further input from the public and take a proposal to the Board of Supervisors,” he said.

Scott told Redwood Voice Community News that he’s working with the California Highway Patrol and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to get more patrols on South Beach July 3 and 4. He pointed out that much of the land on South Beach either falls into the Caltrans right-of-way or is managed by CDFW.

As of Thursday, Scott said the CHP has committed to sending 10 extra officers to Crescent City while Cal Fire has informally committed to sending five.

“They will be writing citations for illegal fireworks,” Scott said. “They’ll be walking the beaches. They’ll be all over. And then we’ll try to get them to also respond in the community for illegal fireworks in the neighborhoods.”

Scott said CDFW has also agreed to help. He’s also kept Redwood National and State Parks officials in the loop “because of Enderts Beach.”

The Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office is also in the process of creating a tip line for people to report illegal firework activity in their neighborhood

“There’s just such an influx of people that we really have to solve this and get people to understand that this is a family-friendly event,” he said. “It’s not to come here and bring fireworks from Nevada and Arizona that are mortars and so forth. Those Cal Fire citations are extremely hefty. You’ve got fines in the thousands of dollars and possession of over 100 pounds of illegal fireworks is actually a felony violation.”

Warning people that shooting off bottle rockets and other illegal pyrotechnics could cost them, at minimum, $1,000 is part of the messaging the fireworks ad-hoc committee is looking to get out to the public, District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey said. Their target audiences include Del Norters, visitors and tourists and business owners, she said. In addition to spreading the word via traditional avenues such as newspaper and radio public service announcements, the fireworks ad-hoc committee will post flyers and are hoping to coordinate with Caltrans on electronic billboards, Starkey said.

“Our timeline is, March through April, we’ll announce the ordinance changes and start community engagement,” she told Redwood Voice. “From May to June we’ll ramp up with our media outreach and law enforcement messaging and July 1-4 we’ll have high-intensity messaging with real-time updates and reminders.”

Starkey said she’s hoping residents will be good neighbors to each other and that, while everything may not be perfect, she and other leaders don’t want illegal fireworks to be part of Del Norte County’s Fourth of July culture.

“People need to be reminded of what happened last year,” she said. “There’s going to be push back, but I think that anybody that can recall what happened last year — 14 people were injured and one very seriously, but for the grace of God is he alive. I don’t think that’s a hard message to push out.”