"State should be proud of Boatwright's job: He tried to give the state a sensible fireworks policy" is the headline to this opinion piece in Sunday's Marion Chronicle Tribune. Some quotes:
You have to hand it to Tracy Boatwright, who recently retired after 11 years as state fire marshal. No one can accuse the former Marion firefighter, city council member and state representative of sugar-coating things or pulling any punches. * * * Boatwright invested a great deal of energy trying to enforce the current state law and trying to convince the General Assembly to write a sensible law governing fireworks sale.Indiana Law Blog reports on the Celebration Fireworks decisions may be found at 6/26/04 and 6/25/04. Posted by Marcia Oddi at July 19, 2004 06:12 AMThe fireworks industry tied up enforcement efforts in court, and the General Assembly essentially gave Boatwright a blank stare. It had already given the state a fireworks law that could have come from the world of Alice in Wonderland.
The state's current law allows the sale of powerful, dangerous and otherwise illegal fireworks so long as buyers promise to use them outside the state or at certain designated sites. The law is widely ignored. * * *
Just a few days before Boatwright retired, he lost another court case when Celebration Fireworks convinced the Indiana Court of Appeals that more than $300,000 in fees charged by Boatwright were illegal. Boatwright's office had required wholesalers to pay a $1,000 fee for each location they operated, which cost Celebration Fireworks $306,000 from 1991 to 1994. In its lawsuit, originally filed in 1995, Celebration argued that state law required just one $1,000 fee per company. The fire marshal's office has since stopped assessing multiple-site fees.