Why you may not be as annoyed by fireworks in Philly this Fourth of July

The one upside to inflation for West Philadelphia resident Donna Hillhouse is that she suspects people are no longer able to afford fireworks.

“You hear it,” Hillhouse said, “but you don’t hear it like it was. It was like an everyday thing.”

Hillhouse was walking Thursday morning to her car, a few steps away from the 100 block of South Alden Street, which two years ago had the highest rate of official complaints to police about fireworks of any block in the city: 40 in June of that year alone.

She recalled hearing fireworks all that summer, in the teeth of the pre-vaccine pandemic and protests over a Minneapolis police officer’s murder of George Floyd. They exploded until 3 a.m. sometimes, she said. They are pretty to see, she said, but maybe they shouldn’t be going off all the time.

She’s right about hearing fewer of them this year. In 2022, there’s been a massive drop in fireworks complaints to police across the city. According to Philadelphia Police Department data, there were 294 fireworks complaints between May 29 and June 28. Go back to the June before, and that number was 1,123. In the turbulence of 2020, police logged a whopping 9,078 complaints that June. This summer’s tally dropped 95% from the pandemic’s corresponding 2020 number.

There’s no way of knowing if fewer complaints means fewer people are lighting fireworks. And while there doesn’t appear to be one simple reason for the decline in reports to police, finances clearly play a part. So does the pandemic.

In 2020, nearly all of the city’s attractions were shut down as COVID-19 spread. Primed with stimulus money, some revelers dropped hundreds of dollars on more powerful fireworks Pennsylvanians have had legal access to since a state law was enacted in 2017 that allowed devices with up to 50 milligrams of explosive material.

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Are you hearing a firecracker or a gunshot? That question is always what comes to mind for a West Philadelphia woman named Tamika — she didn’t want her last name printed — when July 4 comes around. In 1999, her brother was shot seven times as fireworks lit up the sky.

“Fireworks still make me think about how he got killed,” she said.

As she sat on a West Philadelphia stoop Thursday morning, she didn’t have high hopes that this year would be any different.

While Philadelphia has strict rules on fireworks — only people 18 or older can possess them, and they can’t be shot off on public property, under trees, or within 150 feet of an occupied building — she doesn’t believe anyone heeds them.

“They be popping off until like about 3 in the morning,” she said Thursday.

» READ MORE: Philly police got more than 8,500 fireworks complaints in one month

Often, the people setting off the really explosive fireworks, the ones with big displays and potential for damage, are just kids, said Tiara, a mother from South Alden Street, who also asked that her last name not be published.

“To me,” she said, “it’s just a part of living in the city.”

Sheila Bryan agrees.

As she sat on her shaded porch, the 65-year-old spoke of going to North Philadelphia for the July 4 holiday to watch fireworks with her family.

“It’s pretty,” she said. “I like it.”