Posted on 06/19/2006 8:10:58 AM PDT by dead
Undercover NYPD cops are cracking down on New York buyers of illegal fireworks by staking out Pennsylvania vendors - and, for the first time, seizing the cars of people who travel out of state to get their Fourth of July fireworks.
So far this year, cops have seized 30 vehicles belonging to New York ers as they return home from Penn sylvania after buying fireworks there, and have arrested 60 people, according to a report in New York magazine this week. The report says undercover cops have been watching Pennsylvania fireworks vendors and looking for New York license plates. The heightened enforcement comes after Mayor Bloomberg's law-enforcement officials noted an increase in illegal fireworks set off during last Fourth of July on Staten Island.
One Pennsylvania merchant, Bill Weimer, told the magazine that he asks New York police to quit taking pictures of his customer's license plates and leave his stores but that they go across the street and "give off that New York cop attitude."
In an odd twist, New Yorkers - who are barred from possessing fireworks in their home state - can legally buy them in Pennsylvania, which prohibits sales only to its own residents.
A law-enforcement source told The Post yesterday that the NYPD also has confiscated hundreds more cases of fireworks this year compared with last year. More than 1,000 cases have been seized to date, as against 150 last year...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Not quite. Consumer fireworks are a category in federal law that are distinct from display (professional) fireworks. Consumer artillery shells are no more than 1.75 inch in diameter. A professional show's shells can be 3-6 inches or even larger.
Consumer fireworks do have some nice effects, and people should be cautious (and respectful of others' property), but they are not the same thing as professional devices.
Of course, it could be a Federal Crime, too. Transporting explosives without a permit across state lines. BATF might be interested.
Again, these are consumer devices, specifically packaged and designed for transportation by consumers.
Presidential pardon, a guest worker permit, and an RNC membership.
Bloomberg is becoming more Hitler like every day.
Byzantine? Phew. Illinois goes entirely on the honor system.
Yep, I live in PA and in my younger days, a friend's uncle would go to Ohio to buy a load of fireworks for us. We couldn't buy them in our state so we had to go to another. But the Ohio guys could come to PA and buy ours, because they couldn't buy them in their state either...
Sure you can. Just not if you live here. There are stores in Erie and Breezewood, for example, but PA residents are not allowed inside.
SD
There's a Second Amendment. As everyone knows, our only rights are the Bill of Rights, government is free to trample us whenever they want outside of that. Or so most of us seem to think.
My big brother, the boy scout, used bow and arrow to shoot sparklers way up into the sky. Looked nice. One arrow came down about a foot and a half from where I was standing... SHOOMP right into the ground. We were crazy and wild then.
Methinks we need a lot of "Patriot " ( the movie )mindsets in this country for the possible coming Revolution. " Count me in !!"
"So now the government can seize a vehicle for fireworks?
No trial. No jury. just sell it?"
They can do it because we live in a police state whether people want to admit it or not. They gained the ability to seize property on a whim from the WOD.
The Republic is Dead. Long live the Democracy...
God help us...
We used to put M=80's or/or "torpedos " on arrows and shoot them into the air .
"Not quite. Consumer fireworks are a category in federal law that are distinct from display (professional) fireworks. Consumer artillery shells are no more than 1.75 inch in diameter. A professional show's shells can be 3-6 inches or even larger. "
Perhaps so, but my neighbor two doors up the street from me was firing 4" shells. He showed them to me. He had 48 of them, and bought them in Wisconsin. He had a number of other fine displays, including some triple burst shells. Very good display...probably not such a good idea in a residential neighborhood, though.
You'd have to see the Saint Paul neighborhood displays to believe it. From where we live, you can see the bursts from the City-sponsored show on the Mississipi. Most of the neighborhood displays were rather subdued, until the end of the finale of the big show on the river.
As soon as the last shell of the finale went off, it seemed like the entire city put on its own finale display. My neighbor fired his 4" mortars at 10 second intervals. The guy down the street a block or so was timing his to fill the gaps in my neighbor's display.
Amazing stuff, and this went on all over town. We're on a hill, so we could see the displays from all over town. Amazingly, there didn't appear to have been any fires. I had my scanner out in the yard. Lots of reports of illegal fireworks, of course, but the cops were all doing crowd control down by the river.
Me? I just watch, and spray down any burning fragments that land on my roof. They'd probably go out anyhow, but I'm not interested in risk-taking.
Actually, all they have to do is stop you when you cross the bridge into New York. They can generate a list of license plates from the photographs, fax it home, and when your plate number comes up on EZ Pass, deploy the cruiser to pick you up. A quick search of the car (legal, because the surveillance established probable cause), and you're stone cold busted.
In Indiana, we just got a similar law repealed this year. Now you can buy them in Indiana and fire them off legally.
Interesting. I don't know where he got them from, but anything of that size is not supposed to be sold without a DOT professional license. I can understand being wary of that going off in your neighborhood.
SD
Pennsylvania state Troopers should do what Delaware Troopers did many years ago........arrest the out of state cops for loitering, being out of their jurisdictin, and a host of other issues..........
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