FOLLOWUP: Potential fireworks ban advancing on two political fronts
(Reader photo: Fireworks debris in West Seattle, July 2018)
Are the days – and nights – of legal fireworks in unincorporated North Highline coming to an end?
The calls for a ban intensified after last year’s deadly fire. King County Council Vice Chair Joe McDermott says he supports a ban. This week he told us that he’s been working on the ban proposal with both the county permitting division and King County Executive Dow Constantine, and that he expects Constantine to send the proposal to the council next week.
Even if a ban passed quickly, though, state law requires a year before it could take effect, so there would be at least one more year of legal fireworks. When this all came up for discussion last September at a North Highline Unincorporated Area Council meeting, 34th District Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon talked about legislation to change that. Now, he’s introduced it – HB 2307, “to allow local governments to ban fireworks immediately” – and tells us it’s progressing in the House. Our area’s senior state Representative, Eileen Cody, is a co-sponsor. The Local Government Committee took action to advance it last Friday, two days after a hearing. Now it’s moved on to the Rules Committee for review.
To comment on that bill, you can go here. As for the proposed county ban, we’ll publish a followup when it’s introduced.
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February 4th, 2020 at 11:24 am
Is there an opportunity to express support for the King Co ban? I (and my dogs) 5,000,000% support this!
February 4th, 2020 at 10:01 pm
Once we get word it’s officially gone to the County Council, you could contact all the councilmembers .
February 5th, 2020 at 9:28 am
I would like to see this go in to effect to . See it get enforced write fines or make arrests if needed . Even during sports events people light off fire works . It’s great when we score a point or some one makes a great play but it’s annoying to light fireworks and dangerous .