Guest Opinion | Fired Up About Illegal Fireworks

As you may know, fireworks are illegal in the city of Pasadena. I’ve been a resident since November of 2011 when I moved here with my husband, but also before that I grew up in the Pasadena/South Pasadena area. Regardless to say, I’m familiar with the city and I live in district 5. Year after year illegal fireworks get worse and worse in the area. I’m not talking about the little fireworks that kids play with, I’m talking about the big illegal ones that are so loud they shake the house and make all the dogs in the area go into a barking frenzy.

In the past I wouldn’t even hear them until a few days before and after July 4th, but every year it keeps getting worse and now it’s not even July and these idiots are already setting them off in the neighborhood. I’ve called the Pasadena PD in the past and it takes them forever, if at all, to patrol the area, and what good does that even do when the offenders have already run away. I usually hear them around East Mountain and Wright Avenue/Merrit Drive by Lake. But lately it’s been in the area north of us near East Mountain and Hudson Ave/Belvidere Ave — also by Lake. The sound is so loud that it’s like a big car crash or bomb going off.

My husband was walking our dogs the other day and I heard these loud popping sounds that almost sounded like gun shots. Felt my heart stop just worrying if they were, but they ended up being some type of illegal fireworks. Doesn’t help that the area is already riddled with so many criminal activities in the past year. I’m afraid to even walk our dogs by myself nowadays.

I don’t know what the solution is, but I wish the police would patrol more.

 

Brenda Rivas moved to Pasadena with her husband in 2011, but before that grew up in the area.