WATERVILLE — Kendrick Whitney thinks voters should decide whether consumer fireworks should be sold and used in the city.
To that end, Whitney is circulating a petition asking that the recently passed ordinance banning fireworks be repealed.
City councilors voted 7-0 June 5 to prohibit selling or using consumer fireworks within city limits. The ban starts Monday..
“Seven people should not decide for 15,000 people on this issue,” Whitney, 45, said Monday. “I don’t think the City Council is fairly representing the voters of the city of Waterville.”
City Clerk Patti Dubois said Whitney must submit the signatures of at least 1,506 registered Waterville voters by 5 p.m., June 25 to her office in City Hall in order to get the issue on the ballot. That number represents 15 percent of the number of voters who were registered at the last municipal election.
Whitney said about 250 people already have signed his petition.
Once the signatures are certified, Dubois will present the petition to city councilors.
“Then the council has some options,” Dubois said. “They can either pass the requested petition item or they can refer it to the voters.”
If the council decides not to pass the petition request, then it must let voters decide, she said.
The council would set a date for a voter referendum on the issue, according to Dubois.
“I would assume they’d set it for the next regularly scheduled election (in November); but obviously, that would be a decision that the council would make,” she said.
The referendum would have to take place from 30 days to 365 days from the date the council makes a decision on the petition, she said.
Whitney said he thinks he will gather the 1,506 signatures needed for his petition.
He said he plans to circulate the petition outside the polls today at the American Legion hall on College Avenue.
“I’ve gone door-to-door,” he said. “Yesterday I was down on The Concourse, speaking with people, and I’ll probably be there this evening.”
He said some people he has spoken to support the fireworks ban, while others are upset about it. Some are upset about people setting fireworks off after 10 p.m., the state curfew.
“That’s a situation where the police need to step in and enforce the law,” he said.
Whitney says he uses fireworks, but not a lot.
“But I think people should be able to use them. I think a fireworks store just opened up in Winslow. We haven’t had them in the state for years, and it’s kind of a new thing. Once the newness wears off, the use is going to peter out.”
Councilors decided to enact the ban after police and city officials received complaints from residents about people setting off fireworks.
The ordinance says anyone who sells fireworks would be fined $300 to $500 for a first offense and $600 to $1,000 for subsequent ones. Anyone using fireworks would be fined $200 to $400 for a first offense and $300 to $600 for subsequent offenses.
Police will enforce the ordinance, according to police Chief Joseph Massey, who said violators will be warned for the first week the ordinance is in effect.
After that first week, violators will be summoned.
The Legislature lifted the state ban on the sale, use and possession of consumer fireworks. A fireworks store recently opened in Winslow.
The only way an organization or institution may have a fireworks display in Waterville is to obtain a permit from the State Fire Marshal’s Office, according to City Manager Michael Roy.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
acalder@centralmaine.com
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