HONOLULU (KHON2) — A crackdown on illegal fireworks was promised at the start of the legislative session, following a deadly New Year’s explosion that killed six and injured many more. But what made the cut for new laws and will they make our neighborhoods safer?
More than a dozen bills were put forward in January, but only a handful made it all the way.
Authorities and experts said there’s potential in what did survive to toughen enforcement, but it comes down to action on the street from cops, to courts and at our ports.
After a stash of illegal fireworks turned deadly at the start of the year, the governor, lawmakers and authorities pledged swift and decisive action and enforcement.
Arrests and confiscations followed, but no one has been prosecuted to conviction. A slew of bills were introduced, but not many passed into law.
Those that did include a broader spectrum of citation and felony charge options, allowing law enforcement to use drone images as probable cause and another to fund sting operations by the state Department of Law Enforcement.
“If you live next door to someone, after watching what happened New Year’s Day, it must be terrifying to wonder, is it going to be your neighborhood next. And I think that the legislators understand that, and that these new laws represent that type of frustration that they were feeling from their constituents,” explained DLE Director Mike Lambert.
“I’m a little concerned that that might not be very effective, given the fact that in the past, strict or strong penalties really haven’t made that much of a difference,” said Bruce Albrecht, Hawaii Explosives and Pyrotechnics.
One surviving bill makes it a Class A felony if anyone suffers substantial injury or death from fireworks, and a Class B felony for serious injury. That same law adds a lower-level citation for a fireworks infraction to hand out as easily as a speeding ticket.
“You make it easy to give tickets, right? That’s motivating for officers. And then when you have A and B felonies, right? I think it sends a strong message to individuals that if you’re going to engage in this type of illegal activity, and particularly if it harms someone, it’s going to be very, very serious.”
Illegal fireworks are tracked from the moment they arrive in port until they burn up in the sky. But catching undeclared or misdeclared cargo by illegal traffickers is the real challenge.
“To find an efficient way to do that that doesn’t take an enormous amount of resources or an unrealistic amount of time, and slow down the importation of all the goods that are required to come through the ports,” said Albrecht.
Lambert said next legislative session, he’ll ask for a bill to put the full cost of destruction — which can run as high as a million dollars per container to safely destroy — on the busted importer.
We’ve asked HPD and Honolulu prosecutors for an update on those arrested and released pending investigation in the Aliamany case.
Prosecutors said they’re actively investigating and police have not yet responded.
“I’m not privy to what the Honolulu Police Department is doing, but what I have been reassured on is that it is they are looking to make an example, and what that ends up being, I guess time will tell,” Lambert said.
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And time will tell if the big promises to crack down from the start of the year come to fruition.
“Some people, there’s always going to say more could be done. And I guess we’re going to find out in the next 12 months what that more could be.”