City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, city council members. This is Elle McCarron, assistant city attorney, and the city attorney's office will be bringing a proposed fireworks ordinance for your consideration. The recommendation from the city attorney's office and staff is that city council approve and introduce by title only and wave further reading of an ordinance entitled ordinance of the city of Oxnard, California, amending section 7-56 of article 3 of chapter 7, repealing section 7-147.1 fireworks of article 8 of chapter 7 and adding article 16 of chapter 17 pertaining to the regulation of fireworks pyrochnics and production effects violations of the Oxnard city code. Every year leading up to and including the Fourth of July holiday, the city receives over a thousand complaints and requests for services related to the use of fireworks within the city's jurisdiction. In response to numerous complaints from the public received each year during the fireworks season, a comprehensive fireworks ordinance has been prepared by the city attorney's office in consultation with the police and fire departments and the code compliance division to update enforcement provisions as permitted by state law. The proposed fireworks ordinance will increase the minimum fine for each violation from 1,000 to $2,000 per occurrence. The proposed ordinance also allows for the issuance of misdemeanor citations for fireworks violations. All prohibited fireworks all prohibited fireworks use within the city shall be declared a public nuisance and subject to immediate abatement without notice. All costs associated with the abatement will be charged to the

responsible person. Specifically, the proposed ordinance prohibits any person from selling, offering for sale, storing, displaying, transporting, possessing, discharging, igniting, or using dangerous fireworks, fireworks, and fireworks kits, including California safe and sane fireworks within the city at any time. The ordinance, as proposed, does four things. First, it repeals the current fireworks fines set forth in resolution 15162. Second, it cleans up the process council uses to establish fines for violations of chapter 7 of the city code. Third, it repeals the current fireworks prohibitions in article 8 of section 7-147.1, chapter 7 of the city code. And fourth, it creates article 16 in chapter 7 of the city code which establishes a comprehensive framework to regulate fire technics and production effects within the city's jurisdiction. It is necessary to repeal the current fines in resolution 15162 in order to increase the civil penalty amounts by including the civil fines in the ordinance instead of the resolution. the public and the subsequent judicial reviewer will be able to quickly find and determine the appropriate fine amounts for each particular violation without having to refer to or search for a separate document. Section 7-56 in chapter 7 of the city code pertaining to nuisances sets up how the city council can impose fines and the amounts. When preparing this ordinance, it was determined that a portion of that section was no longer relevant. Paragraphs C and D of section 7-56 had been moved to other chapters in the code and are no longer relevant to the

nuisance chapter. Finally, the remainder of the proposed ordinance creates a comprehensive framework pertaining to fireworks within the city's jurisdiction. And the ordinance sets up three pathways to regulate and combat illicit use of fireworks within the city. First, fireworks violations may be punished through the issuance of a civil citation with a fine of $2,000 per occurrence. Any final citation that's not paid can be turned over due collections or enforced through small claims court. Second, certain fireworks violations may be punished through the issuance of a misdemeanor citation punishable by a fine of $1,000 and or six months in jail. Third, the California safe and sane fireworks violations may be punished through the issuance of an infraction or civil citation, both of which carry a $250 fine per occurrence. As background and in general, fine amounts for civil citations issued for violations of a city code are also limited to $1,000 per violation pursuant to California government code section 53069.4. There are exceptions to the thousand fine limit for certain violations and fireworks violations are an exception. In a formal opinion, the California Attorney General concluded that cities may enact ordinances regulating fireworks within their jurisdictions and issue civil citations and fine amounts in accordance with the fine amounts stated in health and safety code section 12700, which pertains to fireworks. Section 12700 was amended by the legislature in 2023 to increase the fine amounts to $2,000. Based on this change, the proposed fireworks ordinance can and will increase civil citation fines to $2,000 in accordance with state law. The fine amount for a misdemeanor violation of a city code is limited to $1,000 pursuant to California government code section 3691.

However, the consequences of a misdemeanor citation can be more severe than a civil citation. The proposed ordinance assists police, fire, and code compliance in combating fireworks violations and allows the city attorney's office to prosecute misdemeanors of the city code rather than the district attorney's office for state code violations. The California Health and Safety Code recognizes four categories of fireworks. The first is dangerous fireworks. Second is just regular fireworks. Third is fireworks kits. And the fourth is safe and sane fireworks or sorry California safe and sane fireworks. The city's proposed ordinance mirrors the requirements of the state code by prohibiting all types of fireworks in the city unless the fireworks or fireworks kits and other types of pyrochnic devices to be used in a public display are done so with a permit and permission of the city's fire chief or the city's fire marshal. and follows the state and local regulations established for such uses. The following are some examples of dangerous fireworks. These range from firecrackers to sky or bottle rockets, Roman candles, M80s, aerial shells, oversized sparklers, and fireworks that explode, go up in the air, or they move around on the ground. Fireworks kit and fireworks are described as the components required to create a dangerous firework or a fireworks display. They're usually the types of fireworks utilized by licensed professionals for displays and entertainment. And lastly, California safe and sane fireworks are described as small groundbased items. They tend to be static groundbased items that don't move. There's some handheld items. There's spinners, fountains, and party poppers. Um, we have also included for the council's review a chart and listing of the various types of calls for

service related to fireworks over the last 5 years as well as the number of calls received on the 4th of July. And if you look at the information in the graph, it shows that there is a downward trend in the amount of calls for service related to fireworks. And we are hoping that this ordinance will continue that downward trend. The council members have any questions, now is the time we'd be like to ask them.