At the last city council meeting, the Lakeport City Council took over $50,000 in potential revenue away from four local non-profits by denying them the right to sell fireworks during the July 4th holiday season. This decision strikes a brutal blow to the four non-profits who are already suffering financially during these difficult economic times.
The two Lakeport Booster Clubs are trying desperately to help schools with supplies, programs and even transportation. As the Lakeport Unified School District faces a shrinking budget it will be more important than ever for the booster clubs to be able to step in and help. The Miss Lake County Pageant is part of the largest scholarship organization that focuses on young women. The Lake County Channel Cats help maintain the city pool.
All of these organizations have dreams and goals for the youth in this community and all of them have just been dealt a potentially lethal blow. The opposing argument was stated simply in the original argument – fires may be started and the local fire departments might not have the resources to fight these fires. Only one fire has been started in Lakeport due to safe and sane fireworks. It was started by an unsupervised child, in a shed, and it was quickly put out.
The opposing arguments quickly went to the safety of children with Mayor Bertsch asking the non-profits at one point, “How would you feel if you sold a firework to a child who was later hurt by them.” How would we feel? Like we did something illegal! Legally, we are only allowed to sell fireworks to adults over the age of 21 and we card anyone who looks too young. This is a parenting issue. An adult can buy a gun that could potentially harm a child if they find it. Adults are legally allowed to buy alcohol that children could find and harm themselves by consuming. Adults buy all sorts of commodities that could potentially harm children.
Should we ban all of them simply because we don”t trust parents to keep them out of the hands of children? Perhaps we should even ban bicycles because some parents allow their children to ride them without wearing helmets! Lakeport Fire Chief Ken Wells showed a video of a child that was killed by a firework – the firework was not a “safe and sane” firework like the type the non-profits sell. Similar videos could be found showing what happens when a child finds a gun, or a match, or a bottle of beer, or even a container of antifreeze – should we ban all of these products? No, we should educate parents on how to properly supervise their children to keep them from hurting themselves – that is a parent”s responsibility.
Agustin Merodio
Kelseyville
