Ban the Boom? Camas officials agree to hold public hearing to discuss banning mortar-style fireworks

Unable to come to a consensus at the dais after months of debate, the Camas City Council has once again pushed the “fireworks question” a little further down the road.

The Council members voted 5-2 during their June 17 meeting to hold a public hearing in September on the possibility of banning the purchase, sale and discharge of aerial shell fireworks kits with reloadable tubes, also known as mortars.

Due to a state law that says fireworks-related ordinances cannot take effect for one year following their passage, pushing the public hearing into September means a new ordinance banning mortars in Camas would not impact the Fourth of July holiday until 2026.

The decision to hold a public hearing on the possibility of banning mortars stemmed from a recommendation by Councilman Tim Hein, a member of the Council’s ad hoc fireworks committee.

Camas officials have been debating the fireworks issue for nearly a decade — reducing the number of days when residents can discharge personal fireworks from eight days to two days — July Fourth and New Year’s Eve — but refusing to go as far as their neighbors to the east, west and south, where fireworks are limited to “safe and sane” types in Washougal and banned outright in Vancouver and Portland.

Camas, like most small cities in Clark County, still allows the use and sale of all types of fireworks allowed under state law, including reloadable mortars, Roman candles, ground spinners, sparklers, aerial mines and cone fountains.

Firecrackers, sky rockets, bottle rockets, M-60s, M-100s, altered fireworks and improvised explosive devices are illegal to purchase, possess and discharge in Washington state except on Native American reservations.

Camas officials have been debating the pros and cons of restricting fireworks for nearly a decade, and — before the COVID-19 pandemic — regularly heard from residents on both sides of the issue during the Council’s workshops and meetings. More recently, City officials reached out to the community via its online Engage Camas website, and formed an ad hoc fireworks committee with three councilmembers, including former Councilman Don Chaney, Hein and Councilman John Nohr, the fire chief of the Cowlitz-Clark Fire Rescue district in north Clark County.

The fireworks committee presented information to the Council in April, and said that, in 2023, according to the county’s emergency dispatch center, the Camas-Washougal Fire Department responded to nine fireworks-related fires while the East County Fire and Rescue District responded to five fireworks-related fires.

“Most were grass fires … though we did have one house on top of Sierra that had over $100,000 (in damages due to) fire damage,” Nohr told his Council peers in April.

“I still believe the strongest enforcement — without putting a burden on our fire or police — is (through) ourselves, as neighbors,” Hein said. “If there’s a ban on the discharge (of mortars), I have a legal basis in my own cul-de-sac to say, ‘You can’t do that.’ There is power for citizens to have the ability to say, ‘You can’t do that in our neighborhood.’”

Councilman John Svilarich said he believed banning the discharge — but not the sale or purchase — of mortars would cause even more confusion and muddy the waters when it came to enforcing the new ordinance.

“Then a neighbor says, ‘I bought it in town, what do you mean I can’t use it?’” Svilarich said during the Council’s June 17 meeting.

Senescu said in June that she did not support moving forward with any attempts to further regulate fireworks in Camas.

“I don’t support going forward on this,” Senescu said. “From what I’ve listened to, the people want to stick with the status quo and what the state of Washington said was legal.”

Councilwoman and Camas Mayor Pro Tem Bonnie Carter said in June that she supported holding a public hearing on the possibility of banning the purchase, sale and discharge of mortars, but added that she believed the Council should not hold the hearing this summer.

“I recommend September, when everyone is returning from summer vacations,” Carter said.

Nohr, who said he has heard “overwhelmingly” from citizens who support a fireworks ban in Camas, agreed that holding the public hearing in September made sense.

“If we do it in July, we’ll get comments from a lot of people who are really upset about it,” Nohr said. “I would rather have reasoned arguments rather than emotional arguments. It won’t change the effective date, and we would hear more reasoned arguments in September.”

In the end, the majority of Council members voted to hold a public hearing on the possibility of banning the purchase, sale and discharge of mortars in September. Senescu and Lewallen voted “no,” and Lewallen pointed out that she was not against holding a hearing to ban the discharge of mortars, but was against holding a hearing on banning the purchase and sale of the aerial fireworks kits.

“We’re looking at being more restrictive than state law,” Lewallen added. “Those who want it changed need to be reaching out to their state legislators. … I’ve heard from both sides and have heard more from people (who think) the restrictions we have in place are restrictive enough. Every time we continue to chip away at it … I think those individuals (who want more restrictions on fireworks in Camas) will not be happy with it until they are banned.”