Is this the year the state Legislature finally lights the fuse for legal fireworks sales in Georgia?
A constitutional amendment to legalize the sale of fireworks across the state will receive a floor vote Tuesday in the Senate, the first of two legislative efforts being pushed on the issue.
The amendment would let Georgia voters have final say on whether they want to legalize fireworks. A related bill, which would flesh out the details about how to do that, passed the Senate Insurance and Labor Committee on Monday.
If voters eventually said yes, money collected by the state through firework sales would help pay for trauma care and firefighter services. Estimates of just how much money might be raised has varied from $2.5 million to $10 million a year.
But it is unclear whether the effort will pass. Opponents, including Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, worry that legalizing consumer rockets, firecrackers and roman candles will result in an increase of injuries, especially among children.
The bill’s sponsor, Senate Rules Chairman Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, and other proponents argue that fireworks are already here, the domain of backyard picnics and Fourth of July cookouts, despite a sales ban in Georgia on anything more powerful than sparklers and glow warms.
Mullis said the state would do better to reap the rewards of the thousands of Georgians who currently travel every year outside state lines to places like Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina, where the sale of fireworks is legal.
“We lose millions of dollars of revenue because people go out of state to buy fireworks,” Mullis said. Of fireworks, he said, “They’re dangerous, but so is walking across the street. Let’s regulate it and make it as safe as possible.”
Senate Resolution 378 would propose amending the state constitution to allow legal fireworks sales in Georgia. Although it would ultimately put the question to voters, it must first be approved by a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House in order to be placed on the ballot.
Senate Bill 229 would prohibit anyone under 21 years of age from purchasing fireworks in Georgia. It also would spell out other prohibitions and regulations, including required safety inspections.
National firework distributors support the effort. Jerry Bostocky of Phantom Fireworks said the metro Atlanta area, with more than 5 million residents, would “immediately become one of the most desirable markets” if the ban is lifted.
But Atlanta resident Janine Brown, who lives in Reynoldstown, said she did not want to legalize fireworks, given insurance concerns and the close proximity of houses in her urban neighborhood. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me,” Brown said of the proposals.
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