An upcoming fireworks ban? Business is going very well for Tristen Haagsma (27) from Scooter Center Slinge. He and about six colleagues have been preparing online orders since 5 a.m. The doors opened at 8:00 am. Customers who have ordered fireworks online will be assigned a time slot to collect their order. In this way, the retailer tries to spread the crowds and help everyone as best as possible.
One of the customers is Jeroen Bosmans (56), a regular customer for sixteen years. This year he will pay around 700 euros. He doesn’t light the fireworks himself, his children do that while he stands by. Bosmans is not very concerned about a national fireworks ban. According to him, such a ban is difficult to enforce and there will only be more fireworks next year. “I think there will be massive explosions next year. I think even worse.” Even if the rules become stricter: “People will just buy it across the border.” According to him, fireworks are simply part of New Year’s Eve, he does not believe that people will just stop.
A poll by Kieskompas and the ANP news agency shows that two-thirds of Dutch people are in favor of a national fireworks ban. People over 65 in particular are in favor of a ban, while young people are divided.
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Sale
This morning the sale of fireworks started across the country. You could order online from November. Also in Rotterdam, where lighting consumer fireworks from ‘the F3 category’ has been prohibited all year round since 2020. Only ‘F1 fireworks’, the so-called children’s fireworks such as sparklers and crackers, may be set off all year round.
Earlier this year, the House of Representatives approved the initiative law Have a safe New Year’s Eve of GroenLinks-PvdA and the Party for the Animals. According to the applicants, the current way in which New Year’s Eve is celebrated puts too much pressure on safety, care and the environment. These concerns are in line with the figures surrounding fireworks injuries. Last year, more than eleven hundred people reported injuries to GP surgeries and emergency departments, slightly less than the year before, while more and more municipalities have a ban on cutting.
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According to seller Haagsma, the image surrounding fireworks has changed significantly in recent years. “When you say the word fireworks, people immediately hear illegal,” he says. According to him, that image does not do justice to what is sold in the store. “This is all legal and approved.” He does not see the problems, such as violence against emergency workers, as a result of legal fireworks. According to Haagsma, this mainly concerns heavy, illegal fireworks that come from abroad. He therefore finds it contradictory that legal sales are restricted, while the illegal circuit continues to exist.
“Many people who come here, our regular customers, bring their children. Father, mother, grandmother, sometimes all at the same time,” he says. According to him, together they consciously choose legal fireworks and they know what they are giving their children. There is no such certainty with illegal fireworks. “Then you don’t have that control,” says Haagsma.
Wool and crochet yarn
Further on in Rotterdam-Charlois, at Elo Vuurwerk Rotterdam, there are normally balls of wool and crochet yarn, but now the shelves are covered. A line of customers shuffles forward. Are the boys sixteen yet? Oh, they have an adult brother with them. One of them calls home to ask if he can have another 13 euro box. They are often fathers with teenage sons, but there are also families with young girls looking for stars. The crowds are handled with four cash registers and many staff on the floor.
Petra Meyer (56) helps behind the counter. She rents the building for her wool shop, but works with her husband and son in the fireworks shop during the three sales days. People with a foreign nationality also visit the multicultural district. Many of them speak little or no Dutch, says Meyer. Then she takes extra time to explain things.
This is necessary, she says, because many customers do not know Dutch fireworks legislation. “Then you have to explain that they have to wait until the last three days of the year.” There is a particular demand for heavy firecrackers. “That ‘big boom’ that people are talking about, those are Cobras. We don’t sell those.”
The business is run by Loek Klaare (58), who has been selling fireworks for 29 years. He also sees little point in a national ban. “It cannot be maintained,” he says. Klaare fears that stricter rules will be counterproductive. “The firecracker that is now thrown at a first responder will soon become a Cobra. Do we want that?”
New fireworks
Customers have to go outside around noon. A bus comes to deliver new fireworks. This happens a few times a day over the next few days. The store is only allowed to have a limited amount of fireworks in stock at a time, so they are constantly being replenished.
Jen Calister (37) waits for a moment until the delivery is over. She previously got her fireworks online; For about 50 euros she bought decorative fireworks, “beautiful lights with colors”, which she sets off herself, together with family. She is not concerned about a possible national fireworks ban. “I understand why people want a ban,” she says, “but you just have to handle it responsibly.”
She herself has no problems with fireworks and sees no reason to stop using them. “I like it,” she says. “It’s something different.”
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