On Jan 28, 6:39*am, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh"
lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:
Too_Many_Tools fired this volley :

Excuse me...I am going to hijack this discussion for a moment.

Lloyd...what states are the most liberal with fireworks and which are
the most conservative?

And how does one learn to build fireworks professionally?
(When I was a kid I wanted to build them when I grew uo)

Finally how has the profession changed since 9/11?

Thanks

There are but a few states friendly to consumer fireworks. *Tennessee and
South Carolina are notable eastern ones. *IIRC, Ohio recently re-instated
legal consumer fireworks. Georgia and New York represent those who are
"most conservative", though that is is misnomer, since they operate like
jack-boot thugs when meting out penalties for infractions.

A few years ago, Ghouliani went almost 200 miles outside his jurisdiction
to arrest and jail a few dozen amateur pyrotechnicians staging a
_licensed_ display in Weedsport. *Because they were not themselves
licensed professionals, he took the stance that they were illegal,
despite their display license and insurance certificate for the event.
Eventually the charges were dropped, but tens of thousands of dollars
worth of exhibition fireworks were confiscated and destroyed, and tens of
people spent a night or two in jail.

A few western states still allow them, but many have American Indian
reservations where they are sold with impunity, even if the state
prohibits the firing of them.

One learns to build by taking a (usually) low-paying job at one of the
few factories remaining in the U.S., and doing it. *It's never a high-
paying or high-margin occupation -- but it's a passion with those of us
who do it for a living. *The only way to get rich in this business is in
the display end of the industry; putting on the big corporate and
municipal shows like do Grucci and Zambelli.

9-1-1 nearly killed us, and about half of the smaller companies went
away. *We manufacture. *We sold exactly zero product for almost a year
after the attack. *Since then, the department of Homeland Security has
tightened the reins on explosives in general, and fireworks particularly,
to the extent that it is now extremely difficult to hire people (because
even a minor scrape with the law as a teen will permanently render you a
"criminal", and thus disallowed to handle explosives), and we spend
roughly 20% of our administration time complying with the many old and
very many new regulations.

The implication of this is that there are very few manufacturers
remaining. *We are the second largest in the world. *Prior to 9-1-1, we
were tenth. *The economics of compliance are tough.

I wouldn't do anything else with my life -- it truly is a passion, and
still interesting and fun every day.

LLoyd

Thanks for the very interesting discussions.

I have always had an interest in amateur rocketry also...and that
hobby has been dealing with similar challenges.

It bears saying that it is a thin line between what is occuring in
your industry and what can easily happen in respect to firearm
reloading and ammo in general. It just takes just one incident for
supplies and ammo to disappear overnight.

TMT