Fireworks complaints keep police hopping on the Fourth

ROCHESTER - After a four-day 4^th of July weekend Rochester Police are crunching the numbers and probably wondering if it's always going to be this time consuming enforcing the city's recently enacted fireworks ordinance.

"It involved a lot of time for officers to investigate each complaint," said Rochester Police Capt. Jason Thomas on Wednesday, a day after the Fourth, when police responded to 18 complaints in some three hours.

Of those 18 calls, 14 ended up with no one being cited or summonsed due to negative contact with fireworks scofflaws.

Over the four-day weekend police responded to 72 fireworks calls or complaints.

Rochester fireworks weren't banned for the Fourth of July, just regulated by a recently enacted ordinance. For $5 residents could apply for a permit and set them off legally, however only nine residents did so.

Tuesday's unrelenting calls for fireworks complaints began in earnest around 7:30 p.m. on Olde Farm Lane, followed by complaints on Lambert Court, Vernon Ave., Country Ridge Estates, Furbush and Dodge Street.

But the worst was yet to come. Between 9:18 p.m. and 10:12, less than an hour, 11 calls came in, each one investigated by a patrol officer. Of those, nine ended with negative contact, while two were summonsed and could pay up to a $100 fine.

In the weeks leading up to the Fourth of July holiday, police had gone on an informational campaign; if they found someone setting off fireworks they would apprise them of the new regulation and explain how to get a permit.

But over the weekend the educational turned to enforcement as 14 were summonsed in all.

Thomas said that if ignorance of the law were to blame, it's not because of police and city officials not trying to get the word out.

"We had it on the police website, the city had it on their website, we had PSAs, social media, we tried everything," he said.