Actually I dont rememeber Weedpsort here at all. It can't have been much at all.
Fair enough. Lemme find you a reference... OK, this is embarrassing, I can't find a good link. I remember reading hundreds of emails on the subject back when it happened, but I guess the pyrotechnics mailing lists in question are not archived.
To make it worse, the only viable reference I can find is a posting on the Hillary Clinton website!!! It's not even a very detailed description at that.
I will attempt to find a better explanation of the incident to which I referred, and post it here later. In the meantime, I quote the post that I could find.
"The Summer Fireworks Festival was held, or at least was attempted to be held, from July 27 to 31, 1998 in Weedsport, New York. This is a perfectly legal, permit-covered event that had been held twice before, successfully, in the same town. But the 1998 festival was doomed by Rudolph Giuliani before it even started. New York state troopers got wind of a "fireworks convention," set up roadblocks, and stopped cars coming and going to the festival, and confiscated fireworks from quite a few people. These roadblocks, interrogations, and confiscations will be challenged in court. At least eight people were arrested. Bob Kellner's entire truckload of fireworks, worth many thousands of dollars, was seized and destroyed. Many convention attendees immediately left for home."
"The Holiday Inn is upset because many people checked out sooner than they had planned. It's not the local police that caused the problems - it's primarily the New York state police and New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's goon squad called the "Fireworks Task Force." The Summer Fireworks Festival has been held twice before, in 1994 and 1996, at the same location, without any such incidents.
"Apparently this year, NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani read about the upcoming event and planned in April to sabotage it, even though Weedsport and Auburn are nowhere near his jurisdiction, and even thought the Summer Fireworks Festival is a completely legal event, covered by permits which were granted in advance."
You said: It can't have been much at all.
I am sure the folks involved would beg to differ. I was nowhere near the incident, but read many many independent reports of the events that formed a reliable picture, and contributed to their legal defense fund of those that were arrested on a variety of minor and spurious and in most cases allegedly bogus charges.