Brampton council puts off decision on potential fireworks ban, exploring higher fines and other options

Thestar.com
April 1, 2022

Brampton city council has deferred its decision on a potential ban on fireworks in the city to a later meeting, but an outright ban seems unlikely at this point.

The possibility of a fireworks ban was raised and referred to city staff in the wake of last year’s Diwali celebrations. Both the city’s bylaw department and members of council received numerous complaints from residents about noise and the negative effects on pets, small children and veterans suffering from PTSD.

At its March 30 meeting, council received a staff report including a recommendation for increased funding for a more robust fireworks education program and potential city organized fireworks displays for Diwali and Victoria Day.

The report recommended a pilot program at a cost of $350,000 to host Diwali and Victoria Day fireworks displays in addition to those held on New Year’s Eve and Canada Day in 2023 in hopes of reducing the private use of fireworks throughout the community. A decision on that proposal likely won’t be forthcoming until 2023 budget deliberations later this year.

While Diwali is a five-day celebration, fireworks are only permitted in the city on one of those days.

“I got complaints about Diwali lasting the entire weekend (with) fireworks going off Friday, Saturday (and) Sunday night up until four o’clock in the morning in some places … And it’s not just Diwali,” Bowman said, adding the same happens during all holidays where fireworks are permitted.

Wards 7 and 8 Coun. Charmaine Williams tabled the possibly of increasing fines for those violating the city’s current fireworks bylaws, which only allow personal use of fireworks that travel 10 feet or less during the four holidays listed above and only before 11 p.m.

Currently fines range between $250 to 350. Council will receive more information on how much the city would be allowed to raise the fines when staff reports back later this year.

However, city staff determined in its report that an outright fireworks ban was unfeasible from an enforcement standpoint and likely wouldn’t do much good anyway.

“A fireworks ban would pose further enforcement challenges,” the report read. “The time bylaw enforcement has to respond to a fireworks call is short and most fireworks are finished by the time they arrive thereby making it difficult to catch people in the act.”

“There are a large number of fireworks related calls during these holidays in a small window of time, which causes capacity and staffing challenges,” the report said, with staff adding the city received 785 fireworks complaints in 2021 with roughly 70 per cent of those coming during Diwali.

Staff also found that Brampton already has some of the strictest fireworks regulations in the country. Delegations from the fireworks industry addressing council during the meeting also pointed out that banning sales of fireworks in the city would have little effect as they are available for sale in surrounding communities and online.

Some councillors agreed with that assessment and said addressing residents’ concerns surrounding fireworks is a very difficult task.

“We’ve been talking about this now for 10 to 12 years what to do about this,” Bowman said. “(Based) on this recommendation that we’ve got here, I don’t know that spending another $350,000 on two city sponsored fireworks events (if) we ban them, I don’t know if that’s going to work, either. The people that are abusing the fireworks are going to abuse them no matter what.”

“Coun. Bowman is absolutely right. We looked at this last term. There’s no answer to this. We can have all the bylaws that we want,” said Ward 7 and 8 Coun. Pat Fortini. “It’s hard for 3-1-1 or bylaw to run around chasing these people. Coun. Williams brings up a good point. I think the fines should be a lot heavier.”