STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3069

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    H.B. No. 2436

       H.D. 2

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Public Safety, to which was referred H.B. No. 2436, H.D. 2, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO FIREWORKS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to strengthen the regulation and enforcement of fireworks by:

     (1)  Clarifying the definition of display fireworks;

     (2)  Making it unlawful, without a permit, to throw any ignited fireworks from or at a moving vehicle, or at any person or animal;

     (3)  Making it unlawful, without a permit, to discharge any fireworks in certain places or within a certain number of feet of various facilities;

     (4)  Requiring a permit for a fee to purchase and use consumer fireworks, aerial devices, display fireworks, or articles pyrotechnic within five hundred feet from any hotel; and

     (5)  Prohibiting minors from selling fireworks.

     Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the State Fire Council, Honolulu Fire Department, Department of Fire and Public Safety for the County of Maui, Legislative Information Services of Hawaii, and four individual citizens.

     Your Committee finds that clarifying the permissible times, places, and uses for fireworks is important to various public groups and individuals so they will know how to comply with the laws concerning the use of fireworks.  Specifically, this measure clarifies when a permit is required to purchase and use fireworks and when the use of fireworks without a permit is unlawful.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by making a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for the purposes of clarity.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2436, H.D. 2, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2436, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety,

____________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair