Fireworks ban due to dry conditions

Yesterday the Hays County commissioners ruled to ban certain flying fireworks with sticks and fins citing they're too dangerous during extremely dry conditions. Bastrop County followed suit. Travis and Williamson counties could join in as well. But one major player in the fireworks industry has already taken the lead in controlling the more dangerous fireworks.

Chester Davis is as excited about fireworks today as he was 30 years ago when he helped start his small business. Now, a major supplier of fireworks selling statewide, new years eve has become one of the busiest times of the year. Buyers like Israel Cavazos, come from all over the state but they know they have to play by the rules at hand.

"Larger fireworks those are big money makers" said Cavazos, "So when there's a burn ban you can't sell those so you know that hurts quite a bit".

Still, changing climate conditions are part of the business and Davis and his mangers says they totally understand the danger.

"We know that 99 percent of the problems with selling fireworks in dry conditions is the sale and use of stick rockets and missiles" said Davis, "Because the travel the farthest distance from the person shooting the fireworks and you have to get to where they are if anything goes wrong".

The owners of American fireworks says he's not going to wait around to find out whether these flying fireworks are banned or not by Travis or Williamson counties. He has decided to pull them off the market in these two counties anyway, because it's too dry.
 
And that's great news to Travis County Fire Marshall Herschel Lee who says there's still plenty of fun to be had even without flying fireworks.

"There will still be a lot of other fireworks that are available" said Fire Marshal Lee, "And to the person that normally doesn't buy rockets or missiles they would never notice the difference when they walk up to the stand".

Ban or not, Davis says restricting sales of these types of fireworks is the right thing to do and considering what happened up the road in Bastrop, most people won't be arguing with the restrictions.