A flashing sign near East Arapahoe and Jordan roads reminds passersby of Arapahoe County’s fire ban. “Use of all fireworks is illegal,” it warns.
A few hundred yards away – also in Arapahoe County – Brad Witherell sells fireworks from a red-and-white tent with five American flags on top.
Lighting fireworks is illegal in metro Denver and many counties. But selling them is not – at least not where Witherell has erected a giant, inflatable gorilla to beckon customers inside his 5,000- square-foot tent.
Lighting fireworks is legal in some unincorporated areas, but with fire bans in several counties, it’s Witherell’s worst season in 25 years of selling fireworks. Business is down 60 percent for his Franktown-based company, Fireworks Unlimited.
“It will take us a couple years to recoup the losses of this year,” Witherell told me. “It’s going to be ugly.”
He can only hope that despite the fire bans, people will buy fireworks and save them for birthdays, anniversaries and New Year’s Eve. He’s lucky Arapahoe County didn’t shut him down.
In Jefferson County, Witherell and other fireworks vendors lost a court battle to open their fireworks tents this year. They had challenged Jeffco commissioners, who abruptly declined to issue them permits just weeks before today’s holiday.
Commissioners said they did not want to send a mixed message by permitting sales of fireworks while banning their use. This decision makes sense, unless you’ve already invested tens of thousands of dollars planning a fireworks stand. Witherell said he was deeply committed several months ago because counties don’t issue firework-stand permits until the tents are set up and the inventories are displayed and inspected.
Witherell’s fireworks were shipped from China in November, unloaded in California, transported to Colorado by train and distributed to Witherell’s tents at several locations in metro Denver. Federal, state and local officials inspected everything along the way.
“You’d think we were selling explosives,” said Witherell.
Witherell sells only sparklers, smoke bombs, party poppers, noisemakers, torches and those tablets that turn into snakes when you light them. The most dangerous things he sells are boxes, cylinders and cones that emit impressive showers of sparks from the ground.
They may have impressive names, like “Waking the Deaf,” “Dr. Fiasco,” “Iraq Attack,” and “Super Pyro Kit,” but to get real fireworks – like rockets that explode in the sky – one must take a short drive to Wyoming, where they are legal.
“We get blamed for every fireworks fire there is,” said Witherell. “But how is a cone or a fountain – that never leaves the ground – going to set somebody’s roof on fire?”
Lightning, cigarettes, sparks from vehicles and campfires cause more fires than fireworks. And then there are squirrels.
In Jeffco, a bushy-tailed rodent reportedly jumped onto a power line, burst into flames and fell to the ground, igniting a brush fire. Authorities, however, have yet to ban crispy critters, who create no jobs, pay zero taxes and invest nothing.
Witherell testified in court that he invested more than $159,000 to set up three locations in Jefferson County. He’d hoped to gross $300,000 in sales there over two weeks around July 4.
His combined expenses for the three tents included: $800 for freight; $1,500 for trash, water and sanitation; $1,500 to rent metal storage containers; $1,800 to rent tables; $2,700 for insurance; $3,000 for advertising; $3,100 for set-up labor; $12,000 to lease three tents; $22,000 to lease three sites; and $96,000 for fireworks.
Meanwhile, demand for retail fireworks has never been greater, the American Pyrotechnics Association reports. The use of backyard fireworks has more than doubled, from 102 million pounds in 2000 to 255 million pounds last year.
Witherell said he loves watching parents and children shuffling through his tents, looking for that certain spark they may remember for years to come.
“My memories, growing up in Denver, are of sitting in the backyard having a picnic and blowing off fireworks on the Fourth of July,” he said.
Al Lewis’ column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Respond to him at denverpostbloghouse.com/lewis, 303-820-1967 or alewis@denverpost.com.
