HONOLULU — Hawaii Gov. Josh Green suggested a new set of penalties on Monday to make it harder for people to break the state’s fireworks laws. This comes almost two weeks after a fireworks explosion at a Honolulu home on New Year’s Eve killed four people and hurt about twenty more.
Police could give $300 tickets to people who set off fireworks, and people who use fireworks in a way that hurts or kills someone could be charged with a class A felony and sent to jail for decades. The ideas will be part of a bill that the governor sends to lawmakers for the new session that starts Wednesday.
“We don’t want people to do this again.” As Green said at a news gathering, “Three hundred dollars will probably make a lot of young people very scared.” “But I hope that getting a major felony and going to jail will make everyone think twice.”
Hawaii’s state and county governments have had a hard time for years keeping illegal fireworks in check. All year long, people there often set off professional-grade air bombs from the streets in front of their homes. Since 2023, police have discovered 227,000 pounds (103,000 kilograms) of fireworks. Most of them were taken from container ships at ports and from packages sent by air. This past week, the head of the state’s Department of Law Enforcement said that almost every day, police catch U.S. Postal Service packages that contain illegal fireworks.
The busiest time for illegal fireworks shows is around New Year’s. People get hurt or even killed in them every year, but the beginning of this year was the deadliest ever.
Green said that his plans are meant to make Hawaii’s fireworks rules easier to understand and follow so that prosecutors can get convictions more quickly and easily.
Police would not have to gather proof when giving out $300 tickets under the plan. “They would just need a witness,” Tricia Nakamatsu, deputy attorney general, said. “That witness could be a police officer or someone else.” For police, this would be very helpful because proof in cases involving fireworks often goes up in smoke.
Like a driving ticket, the person who got the ticket could either pay the fine or go to court to fight it.
Since this would not be a crime, using flames would no longer be illegal at a low level. Most importantly, courts would only need a majority of proof to fine someone. On the other hand, prosecutors must show a criminal charge beyond a reasonable doubt to get a conviction.
Besides that, the tickets can be given out a lot faster. Nakamatsu said, “An officer doesn’t have to go back to the office to write reports, gather evidence, or send it for testing.” She also said that this would help the police get back on the road faster.
A $300 fine is already in place for people who use their cell phones while driving, so that’s what the governor’s team came up with. She said that the idea behind both acts is the same: they could kill one or more people.
The governor wants to give harsher punishments to people who break the law more than once and to people whose fireworks cause major harm or death. This includes people who bring in illegal fireworks, people who buy and sell them, and people who light them.
Hawaii’s law says that having more than 25 pounds of fireworks is a Class C crime that can get you up to five years in prison.
If they are found guilty of the new charges, they could face Class A felonies, which in Hawaii are punishable by up to 20 years to life in jail.
Green said, “If someone kills an innocent person nearby, they need to be held responsible and will have to spend a lot of time in prison.”
Everyone knows that fireworks are fun to watch, but the governor said that everyone should do so safely. He said that he would like to see more public fireworks shows all year long so that people could still watch them.
Lawmakers were asked for $5.2 million by the Department of Law Enforcement last week to hire eight people and make a forensic lab bigger in order to stop people from smuggling fireworks.
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