CALAIS, Maine — Local officials are considering an amendment to the city’s fireworks ordinance that would prohibit the use of fireworks within 1,500 feet of livestock.
The public safety committee met Tuesday night to discuss the proposed change and a special City Council meeting to consider the issue is scheduled for Friday, said City Manager Jim Porter.
“[The proposal] has to do with a complaint about fireworks near livestock and farm animals,” Porter said Wednesday.
The meetings and the proposed changes to the city’s fireworks regulations — which prohibit use of fireworks in the more urban areas of the city but allow them in the outskirts — have nothing to do with the July Fourth death of Devon Staples in a fireworks accident, Porter said.
Staples’ parents, Kathleen and Russ Staples, have been calling for more stringent regulations surrounding the use of fireworks, such as required training before handling them, since their son died.
Porter said there’s a sense among council members that such restrictions are “more appropriately addressed by the state.”
Calais could ban the use of fireworks altogether if it wanted but “there has been no discussion of banning [them],” Porter said.
After a longtime ban, the use and sale of fireworks in Maine have been allowed by state law since Jan. 1, 2012. The law allows individual municipalities to implement full or partial bans within their limits.
Eastport has an ordinance that bans the sale and use of fireworks except for July 3 and 4, the Friday and Saturday of the annual Pirate Festival and on New Year’s Eve.
Lubec has no fireworks ordinance.
“We follow state statute,” said John Sutherland, town administrator.
Machias has no fireworks ordinance but rather follows the state law, said a representative of the town clerk’s office.
Last fall, Dover-Foxcroft adopted an ordinance banning the sale and use of fireworks within the town limits.
In Ellsworth, neighborhood complaints last summer led the city to implement a fireworks ban earlier this year in the city’s more-developed neighborhoods.
Holden also put restrictions on fireworks last year. Anyone who wants to sell fireworks in the town must have a permit. Another ordinance regulates the times during which fireworks can be set off in both summer and winter and during times of high fire danger.