Alright alright, I give. Most of the west coast is apparently a veritable war zone too. Where I grew up, we had really high wildfire risk, so maybe that’s why my memory isn’t of *all this.*
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It's highly variable. I live in East Portland and there's almost nothing a few miles west of me, but go a few miles east and it's the war zone you describe.
On the west side of the river it was pretty bad last night. I'm in Chinatown and the explosions didn't stop until dawn. My poor dog was anxious all night long.
We had almost nothing anywhere close to us, and our cats were freaking out all night. The 4th has actually become an annual family hangout night, everyone chills in the quietest room in the house and we do what we can to keep the vibes mellow.
There has been a significant change due to the pandemic -- canceled fireworks show led to a surplus and then it kept going. Fourth of July always had fireworks, but the week-plus is recent.
I’m visiting family in Arcata and it was a wall of sound from around 7 pm until nearly midnight. During high fire risk, no less. Much worse than Philly.
yeah last night in sf, it sounded like competing fireworks shows but growing up in north/ northeast orange county there was just the one fireworks show and the echoes of disneyland.
I NEVER had to deal with fireworks when I lived on the East Coast. I now live just outside Seattle and there were giant explosions on my street from 4 PM until 2 AM. And they're banned but no one cares and it's not enforced.
Rainier Beach was bad when we lived there but the unincorporated area between the Seattle and Renton city lines is nightmarish. A group set up a giant fireworks installation IN AN INTERSECTION. Not a peep out of KCSO.
We see a lot of family-style groups in the various residential intersections in the South Delridge/White Center area. I am curious about the law enforcement priorities in Seattle proper, because there doesn't seem to be much attention to it.
I am anti-carceral generally, but there needs to be SOME kind of enforcement b/c this is a public safety issue. I reported one last week but they'll just get a letter reminding of them of the laws. I'd like to see fines, or fire departments hosing things down and ruining whatever remains.
I mean, it's hard to get all pissy at people (even though I do) when there are GIANT FIREWORKS STANDS allowed to, legally, sell ALL THE FIREWORKS.
Perhaps we could start there?
It's INSANE around here for the third night in a row. People across the road in the very modest post-war tract homes with junk in the yards sink about a grand into fireworks every damned year. All legal to buy but illegal to set off. 🤔
Nah. NoVa, rural central PA, rural south NJ. (Also Atlanta but I know that doesn't count as "East Coast") One of the few *good* things about the NJ stint was not having to treat July 4 like a war situation--there just weren't any fireworks.
I hear a lot more fireworks out here in Silicon Valley (though the loudest ones are commercial, between cities and Great America) than I did in east-central NJ, but driving to DC in summer as a kid always included seeing a LOT of fireworks stands.
I think there is an implicit assumption that "it's just one night" [note: It ABSOLUTELY is not] and it's not worth either the labor or the bad community relations to enforce. But we have to either be refugees from the noise or drug the whole household to bear it, which is...not ideal.
(The context here, for anyone coming to this conversation outside my followers, is that my spouse is an Afghanistan vet with PTSD. We also have a dog & used to have cats. And I get red-in-my-vision angry at the noise and the selfishness and the harm to my family.)
I live literally a mile from the burn area for the (current) most-destructive wildfire in Colorado. Two-and-a-half years later, you wouldn't know anything happened from how much stuff they were lighting off last night.
I live in a high wildfire-risk area (Western Colorado), and we had jerks firing off professional-grade fireworks ALL night last night. Not just one or two assholes, either. We counted at LEAST 7, and those were just the ones we could see from our front yard.
I think it’s different than when I grew up in 70’s and 80’s. We had the community fireworks and one guy that was really good. Now tomorrow night my sister’s neighbor will have more than enough mayhem. And they won’t be the only ones. More people can get fireworks than back then.
We have a really high wildfire risk and people do it anyway. Our next door neighbor who is a firefighter has PTSD because of two decades of putting out grass fires every fourth.
Don’t recall much in the way of neighborhood frwks as a Bay Area kid. More big official shows & watching Pops back east. Local fireworks tending more toward spinny/whizzy colorful low ground stuff than loud booms. Definitely more concern re setting weeds/etc on fire than v now w/ landscaped yards
New Englander here; personal fireworks were illegal all my life until 10 years ago when we had an R gov & legislature made them legal. They've been much worse, louder & more days, this year. I like big public displays but not this! People must have lots of discretionary $$ to send them up in smoke.
Definitely didn’t have it anywhere I lived in Southern California as a kid. We had some public fireworks obviously but the more spread out nature of the area meant I heard less of those too.
if it helps I grew up on the east coast and don't remember much by way of fireworks in my neighborhood (though many years we went to Kansas to do our own)
Same, I grew up in Mass. and heard kids bragging about setting off cherry bombs but never heard any of them. It was a big deal that we could go to Maine and get sparklers. Nothing like Hawaii which sounds like a war zone from September to February (for New Year's, the 4th isn't such a big thing).
My understanding (also Mass) was always that you could go up to New Hampshire and get pretty much whatever you wanted, but I never knew anyone who did.
I like fireworks, but we always flew out and did them at my Uncle's place in the boonies.
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Perhaps we could start there?
Bans do nothing if the PD won't enforce them. And very few local PDs even make a token effort.
and it is all the time here. Sure, more on holidays, more in summer, but absolutely year round nonsense on my block
I like fireworks, but we always flew out and did them at my Uncle's place in the boonies.
(Though you can still hear fireworks from the neighbors on the Fourth)