Fireworks seller Bart Landsmeer is short and sweet about the situation in his city of Tilburg: “Yes, it sucks.” He is allowed to sell fireworks, but his customers are not allowed to set them off, because there is a lighting ban in the city. Not that his customers adhere to this, because the municipality does not enforce: “Have a good time with that bite!”
At Vuurwerkknaller Tilburg on the Besterdring there is a modest queue waiting to collect their fireworks order on Thursday morning. Mother Tjitske came with son Eppe (15). Yes, they both know that you are not allowed to let off fireworks in the city. “I said: it’s your thing,” she tells her son. “I’m just coming along to pick it up.”
Tjitske is conflicted. She understands the ban on cutting, but also gives her son his annual party. Then Mrs. Oomes joins the conversation. She comes to pick up fireworks for her son because he has to work. She is outspoken in favor: “This is an annual event. They shouldn’t abolish that, it’s an eternal shame. Have a blast with that pot,” she laughs and enthusiastically sticks her thumbs in the air.
“Daddy wants to have a nice blast.”
A little further away, father Michael is standing with his son Dani (7) and he doesn’t think so: “We don’t participate in that ban on crossing. On New Year’s Eve, at twelve o’clock, that calls for some fireworks, right boy? Michael motions to Dani. He nods yes and thinks it’s ‘very nice’ that daddy buys fireworks. “Daddy wants to have a nice blast,” he laughs: “Put on your safety goggles and light a few pots. It’s part of it for us.”
Music to the ears of seller Bart Landsmeer. He has been selling fireworks in Tilburg for seven years and hardly notices the ban on lighting off in the sales figures. But it does sting him: “We just don’t agree with it. For us it is a livelihood. We have made our investments. Tests and inspections every year. Everything to store it safely in the building.”
Landsmeer walks backwards. The fireworks are delivered there. It disappears into the storage space in a bunker: “It’s safe here. It has a sprinkler system, everything that is needed to sell it safely.” Landsmeer incurs significant additional costs. “And if a municipality comes up with a ban on cutting off at such short notice: I don’t think it’s possible.”
“You will see a lot of fireworks in the Tilburg skyline at 12 o’clock.”
Previously, Mayor Weterings of Tilburg indicated that enforcing the ban on New Year’s Eve will be difficult. It will be a ‘low priority’ for the police, a spokesperson said at the beginning of this month. “I expect that if you film the skyline of Tilburg at 12 o’clock, you will see a lot of fireworks,” Landsmeer responds.
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