City council’s bizarre fireworks debate - yes to buying them, no to setting them off

Nationalpost.com
Feb. 5, 2016
By Chris Selley

“Every now and again something comes along that’s a real head-scratcher,” Coun. Stephen Holyday remarked about 8 and a half hours into Wednesday’s city council meeting. He was referring to item LS9.2, “expanding the sale of fireworks to include Labour Day.”

And he was right. It’s one of the silliest things I have ever seen on a council agenda.

The motive may have been a bit contrived, but it seemed like a simple, reasonable idea.

“Labour Day is quickly becoming another holiday on which residents discharge fireworks,” Coun. Frank Di Giorgio observed in the motion at the licensing and standards committee that got the ball rolling.

Amanda Cameron, executive director of the Canadian National Fireworks Association (CNFA), was unable to confirm the existence of this phenomenon.

When I called Di Giorgio’s office to ask about the impetus for this explosive initiative, I got a call back from his assistant, Nicola Faieta, who put a rather more pedestrian spin on matters: a local businessman wanted to sell fireworks in the week before Labour Day, just as he could in the week before Victoria Day and Canada Day.

But the reason hardly mattered, surely: for 363 days a year, Torontonians hoping to set off family fireworks - burning schoolhouses, roman candles and the like - must get a “special occasion discharge permit” from fire services. (Although this is clearly the funniest permit the city issues, only about 15 are requested every  year.)

Twice a year, however, on Victoria Day and Canada Day, we are permitted permit-free pyrotechnics. Holders of temporary vendors’ permits can also sell them the week before. Serious fireworks-related incidents are vanishingly rare, says fire services.

“Generally, Torontonians have been very safe and responsible (about fireworks),” said Jim Jessop, director of fire prevention and public education at Toronto Fire Services. “(Of the) stuff on our radar for public safety, fireworks, to be honest, is so far down the list.”

So what harm could there be in adding Labour Day to the permit-free list? Hashtag freedom! Spice up the UNIFOR picnic a bit.

Small problem: the item the committee passed on to council did not actually propose to allow the firing of family fireworks on Labour Day. Rather, it did literally what it said on the tin: allowed their sale by in week beforehand. You would still need a permit to light the fuse.

As several bemused councillors observed, this was an engraved invitation for illegal fireworks displays. One does not normally buy things at Mac’s Milk that require a special permit to use. Here was the same committee that rages against Uber’s scofflawism inviting a much noisier and potentially dangerous brand - and on the night before school starts, as Holyday observed.

It’s not clear whether the committee knew what it was doing. When I asked Faeita about this strange situation - yes to buying fireworks, no to setting them off - there was a long pause. “OK,” he finally said.

Jessop, too, thought Labour Day would be a permit-free affair. (To be fair, he didn’t have the file in front of him when we spoke; he allowed he had had a long day attending two separate fires.) CNFA lobbied the fire chief on item LS9.2, but Cameron was likewise unaware of the permit requirement.

Coun. Shelley Carroll, who held the item for debate, has a theory about how something so daft could end up on the council floor.

“When a councillor moves a motion ... the chair of that committee should say, ‘let’s refer this to staff and get a proper report,’ ” she said.

In this case, staff just found a way to accommodate Di Giorgio’s narrow request: he wanted fireworks sold in the week before Labour Day; they said OK, noted in black ink that people would still need a permit, and that was that.

“I don’t think it’s a lack of respect for procedure,” said Carroll. “I think it’s a lack of knowledge of procedure, and maybe a little leftover Fordism - that some of the clerks aren’t speaking up as loudly as they should” when councillors try to ram ill-advised things through.

Whatever the reason, however much staff and councillor time this consumed, it was a colossal waste of it. Council voted en masse to receive the item for information, effectively consigning it to history’s garbage can. No one spoke in its favour, and only three councillors voted for it. Di Giorgio wasn’t one of them. He was nowhere to be seen.