Mayor Bloomberg’s anti-fireworks crusade has taken off this year: In addition to offering $1,000 rewards for ratting out your sparkler-loving neighbors via 311, NYPD detectives have hit Pennsylvania—where fireworks are legal—to snoop out New Yorkers who’ve made a run for the border. The NYPD says it’s already made over 60 arrests and seized 30 vehicles and 769 cases of fireworks. Pennsylvania pyrotechnics merchant Bill Weimer has asked NYPD undercovers staking out his Phantom Fireworks stores to stop snapping pictures of his customers’ license plates and beat it. But he says they just move across the street and “give off that New York cop attitude.” Bloomberg claims credit for reducing fireworks-related injuries—not one yet this year—but Weimer says that’s because manufacturers in China are making safer products. “Fireworks are dangerous,” says Bloomberg spokesperson Virginia Lam. “You could lose an eye, a hand, or something worse.” Like your car.

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Geoffrey Gray
• Table of Contents: Jun 26, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!