Fireworks Are Over The Top In Las Vegas. It’s Crazy.
Fireworks in Las Vegas neighborhoods have reached the point of skirmishes in Afghanistan. Rockets whistled over our house, missiles hissed, screamed, exploded, and landed in our back yard and on our roof.
Enemy civilians from nearby homes claimed part of our yard, and now we can’t back our cars out without violating an uneasy boundary line separating territories.
These fireworks are so over the top I heard glass breaking. I’m not making that up. I thought the living room window had blown out. I was in the back yard when one went off right over the roof. After I reached up and put my heart back in my chest where it had flown out of my mouth, I checked for fire.
I was right when I guessed later that it was shrapnel:
http://www.alloy.com/well-being/the-health-hazards-of-fireworks-its-not-just-burns-beware-of-shrapnel-192/
If we’d wanted to have a get together ourselves in OUR back yard, we wouldn’t have been able to. Who wants to sit under fire works and shrapnel spraying down on them?
This morning I got on the horn and called Code Enforcement who put me through to the fire department. I talked to a young man who said he goes through the same thing every year. He was picking mortar pieces out of his pool this morning. Hundreds of dogs run away every year.
He said they used to go out and confiscate fireworks, but since they don’t carry guns and the partiers were usually drunk, they got into too many confrontations that ended badly.
Then I called my council member’s office. Left a message there, and moved on to the mayor’s office. Talked to a young man who listened sympathetically and promised to pass on my message to the mayor.
Each said the same thing: That it’s too hard to enforce the laws against these huge rockets and police the neighborhoods. It’s a valley wide problem here. Nye County has no laws against the sale and use of them, so people bring them to Clark County and set them off for a week before the Fourth and a week after. Fortunately, the worst of it is over the night of the Fourth.
Not only that, but the corner booths that sell them are fund raising groups. Perhaps for the re-building and repair of houses burned down by missile fire, or to pay for medical burn treatments for people.
Our street is a narrow residential street, so when the douches across the street set their rockets off, with their small children standing nearby, it’s like they’re going off in our front yard. Mix it all up in the lab with the alcohol they’d been consuming, and you’ve got quite a war going on.
We were threatened with being shot when we went outside to see if the car windows had been broken. We already have a history with the drug raddled and alcohol soaked young men across the street.
We got through to 911 after thirty minutes of a busy signal to report the threats and the war zone situation, but by the time the police arrived, the cockroaches had disappeared down their holes. Funny how brave they are until reinforcements show up.
There’s a town hall meeting coming up, so I might show up and see if it’s any use to voice my concerns.
Here’s a news report from last year in Las Vegas, where people were still setting off fireworks down the street from where firefighters were working to put out a fire. It says nothing will be done until ‘something drastic happens’. Like a young girl getting burned over 50 percent of her body?
http://www.fox5vegas.com/story/32379375/firefighters-police-overwhelmed-by-illegal-fireworks
Next year we might leave for the evening, but I’m afraid of what might happen while we’re gone. What if one of those M1502000As (the A stands for Afghanistan) sets the house on fire? What if one does break a window?
I might even park our cars in front of the house, and begin a three hour car wash. I figure water spraying out over the street might get a few hundred dollars worth of fireworks real soggy.
I couldn’t agree more. However, must we leave our home because we are being bullied by a younger generation of thugs?
Furthermore, if we move could we run into the same problems elsewhere?
The problem is greater and deeper in our beloved nation.
Many do not take responsibility for their actions, feel no bond or caring for their neighbors or fellow countrymen.
We can not turn a blind eye to these miscreants, we must in turn stand up for our rights and deliver a few rights and lefts if need be.
On a more serious note, I say act. Vote, talk to your councilmen, senators, congressmen, judges, police. Go down the line force the issues. If current administration will not act on our needs, remove them from office.
Act soon or see this wonderful nation fail with the loss of our rights we lose everything.
Well, much as I’d like to move out of this town, I didn’t mean that. I meant leave for the evening. Snort. Love you!
As much as Wolfman speaks wisely, I think more immediate action is required.
Might I suggest giving either Vinny or Guido a call. I know they can be expensive, but they are quite effective. Fresh, homemade Lasagna with meat sauce may move you to the top of their list of client requests.
You are wise, Will Jennings. Vinny and Guido would be the bomb. Oh, wait. Well, they’d be very good for this job. I shall call them. If I can find their number. It’s routed through a senior citizen community center, I know that.
I make great lasagne with meat sauce and I’ll be glad to share the recipe!
What are you saying? ‘Special sauce’ that I can give to the neighbors? Yes?
“Fireworks in Las Vegas neighborhoods have reached the point of skirmishes in Afghanistan. Rockets whistled over our house, missiles hissed, screamed, exploded, and landed in our back yard and on our roof”
Actually, without exaggeration, it sounds exactly like the neighborhood I grew up in in Brooklyn 50 years ago. I’ve had a lifelong aversion to fireworks as a result.
Two bad the police are all out chasing down and nailing folks smoking in the back rooms and bathrooms of local bars so they can’t pay attention to people setting off explosives.
– MJM
Really? I don’t remember having neighborhood fireworks that dangerous. I’m not even sure they were around! I do remember the magnificent public fireworks that showed things like the drummer boy against the flag. What happened to those?
I’m going to the town hall meeting and speaking about it. If they want to fill some coffers they should hire temporary auxiliary teams to pass out tickets. Those fireworks are very illegal, but they claim they can’t enforce the regulations. I know the Strip has a YUGE influx of people every year, but this was so over the top. And if there’d been a fire or injury, forget calling emergency services. I just got a busy signal for thirty minutes.
We allow people to smoke where ever here, so that’s not the answer. They must be doing something else. Hiding out maybe.
Gigi, good point on the relatively relaxed rules on smoking in Vegas! When people point out the lack of police resources for things I often point out that those same police resources seem to be available for enforcing smoking bans. It’s such a common condition that an important part of my chocolate-covered brain didn’t kick in and remind me that Vegas was a horse of a different color. My fault entirely!
Re the neighborhood fireworks thing: maybe it was just 1960s’ Brooklyn for some reason. I know I’ve always been pleased with the low level of fireworks here in West Philadelphia and was thinking that maybe it was HERE that was the anomaly! LOL!
I’d still say their “can’t enforce” claim is nonsense. Why? Because that was the claim made for years regarding smoking bans in bars elsewhere for years before the Antismokers pushed them in. The solution was simply to move immediately toward totally draconian over-the-top heavy-handed enforcement with huge fines for even the slightest infractions. Here in Philly I constantly ran into bar owners who refused to fight the incoming ban while basically laughing at my concerns while patting me on the back and saying “Look Mike, it’ll NEVER happen HERE!”
The weekend the ban came in they sent out task forces starting in the MORNING to bust bars where the bartenders and/or waitresses, usually smoking, were the only occupants as they cleaned the place up from the night before. They continued during the day and throughout the weekend hitting a bunch of high profile places with heavy citations and the word spread as the rest of the bars got scared and fell into line. Gestapo tactics DO work when they’re employed… all it takes is the “will” to employ them.
Am I in favor of that, for either smoking bans or fireworks? No, but the claim that the police are helpless is false. They’ve simply decided not to bother with enforcement of a law they don’t feel is particularly important and a law that no one “important” is really pressuring them to enforce.
Sooo… yes, if you’re able to gather some support and make a stink you *might* actually be able to make a change in the situation, and in terms of saving people from harm I’d guess that fireworks cause a lot more damage in general than secondary smoke exposure does!
– MJM
Aha. That is very interesting. Kind of backs up what Terry Cohen said also. She used to be on a town council in Florida. She said they could absolutely enforce it. Thank you for the help and suggestions!
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air…
I’m sorry this had to happen to you guys, and in such a special day… these disreputable neighbors again. Don’t they have anything better to do with their lives? A pox on the lot of them, I say.
Here we have a problem with baloons. They may look pretty and fun and all, but many fires in homes and forests are caused by them every year, and that’s why they were outlawed. But people keep on making those.
Well, at least you get to complain at the town hall meeting. We’d be probably dismissed with laughter if we tried to do the same.
Senor, what are the balloons? Are they like fireworks? I’m only familiar with the regular old kind of balloons.
I’m interested in the fact that we have a town hall to express ourselves and you don’t? You don’t have a voice as a citizen? I doubt anyone will pay attention to me, but at least it’s out there. These rockets were so out there, I was flabbergasted that anyone would even THINK of using them near houses. The glass breaking was part of the rocket, Don said. He found it in the driveway. That’s shrapnel! Shrapnel in a residential neighborhood! The mind is boggled.
Don said you must mean hot air balloons?
I will write a post about attending a town hall meeting for the edification of our Brazilian friends. 🙂
Doen is right, I meant hot air baloons. I had no idea what they were called in English! They have been traditionally used since forever, and since forever have they been causing trouble over here.
And, well, we have a townhall, butpeople don’t have an habit of attending meetings, largely because they know they’ll not be listened to. When the city council is voting on a *very* serious bill though, which could screw people over really hard, then some people will try and attend the meeting, but that often ends in a ruckus and the protestors being kicked out of the hall. Sometimes things get really serious and the protestors occupy the townhall, but that rarely ends well, and in small towns like mine that kind of thing is very unlikely.
In the case of my town, the hall is rather small, and there’s very little room left for citizens to be there. There’s also a small conference room but it’s mostly used by the press corps. When people want to put pressure on the city council they usually gather to the main square and organize a demonstration, but then it’s not their demands that will be listened to, but their angry shouts. They’ll either play dumb, or give the mob what they *think* it wants. And the people’s needs remain unadressed.
This is not to mention that sometimes they decided to hold meetings with closed doors.
It’s not like we don’t have voices, but it as if we hadn’t.
Please, by all means, do post about the townhall meeting here; that’d be much appreciated!
I think it’s pretty much the same here, although people attend them in greater numbers. I’ve never attended one though;it will be interesting. I have to make sure it’s the right one, apparently there are several different kinds with different agendas.
The people aren’t always listened to here either, Senor P. In fact, most of the time, I’d say they’re not.
Suggestion: Check the newspapers and health/hospital agencies to see if there were any reports made of injuries or police records made of complaints. See if there’s any way (most likely from the papers) where you could find a way to contact people to see if they’d be up for going to the city council meeting(s) with you. Maybe see if you can use the “Meetup Group” utility to get people connected, or post on local news story boards about fireworks while opening contact for people concerned about them
In addition to outright injuries, investigate from the viewpoint of the crazed Antismokers and their worries about “outdoor secondhand smoke exposure.” The smoke from fireworks in Brooklyn used to hit pretty high levels, and I know that in my visits to Disney World in Florida the smoke levels during their fireworks displays were absolutely insane when the wind blew the wrong way! (Particularly ironic since they were starting to exile smokers to little smoking areas around the park!) If you find anyone with contacts who’s open to concerns about that sort of thing, get them in touch with me: they could do the same sort of “secret sniffer” studies the Antismokers have done on tobacco smoke and I bet the results would be quite interesting.
Sounds good, Michael. I’ll do some ‘sniffing’ around. There are plenty of online news reports, and I found out that these rockets actually spray shrapnel! I updated my post with the link. That makes it doubly crazy to be using these.