It bangs and flashes in Apeldoorn despite fireworks ban: ‘They should not take this away from us’

Van Edwin de Vries, owner of fireworks trade Ed Raket, would have liked the fireworks ban “fifteen years ago”. He means it cynically, because sales figures were excellent this year. The message that more fireworks have been sold nationally than ever before, 110 million euros, will follow later on New Year’s Eve. When the market closes on Saturday evening, he himself calls it “above-average high turnover” in the sixteen years that he has been in the industry – and his father before him.

As one of the twelve municipalities with a fireworks ban, Apeldoorn is taking up the fight against consumer fireworks. Spoiler alert: around midnight the sky lights up as usual and the claps of heavy caliber fireworks rumble through the neighborhoods. Enforcement was not aimed at preventing the setting off of fireworks, the police only intervene in case of excesses. Only boas, officials with limited powers, speak to people.

The fire brigade had to turn out 24 times and Gelre Hospitals speaks of a busy turn of the year, a municipal spokesperson said on Sunday morning. The damage in the public space has yet to be inventoried.

Part of the Dutch population does not care about the legislation that should restrict (heavy) fireworks, as is also evident in Apeldoorn. Many of his fellow townsmen, says De Vries, “don’t care about it”, and that the total ban is not being observed in Apeldoorn “I only think is good”. He follows the rules, as a fireworks dealer. The strikingly large arrows he has lying on a table have been banned since 2020. They appear to be dummies that customers are allowed to take with them: “A piece of nostalgia”. After the last customer of 2022 pays about a hundred euros, he closes the warehouse and his staff moves into Apeldoorn’s New Year’s Eve.

On the south side of the city, truck driver Ramon Schmit fires 300 euros worth of decorative fireworks before going to bed. He has to get up early. Schmit thinks the fireworks ban goes too far, he prefers to see specific areas where it is allowed. And: an alcohol ban, because people do strange things when they drink alcohol: “But it’s easy for me to talk: I don’t drink a drop.” What he puts out is all pretty modest. The fire brigade is short on it when a fire made of cardboard boxes in the street is extinguished later in the evening.

Apeldoorn-South has a tradition to uphold when it comes to spectacular fireworks. At Vogelplein, Desmond and Ramona Lucht are standing by a fire barrel. They just got married. “In principle, I never agree with her,” laughs Desmond. For example, she is in favor of a ban, while at midnight he beams in the glow of the fireworks. “Works well, doesn’t that ban?” He is disappointed that with fireworks it is always “a small group that ruins it”, but a stop “will never happen here”.

Ramona is also beaming, by the way. But earlier in the evening she says in the barn that has been converted into a mini-football canteen next to the house that a ‘different’ New Year’s Eve, as the municipality proposes, does not necessarily have to be worse. “If you make sure we can all celebrate together with professional fireworks, why not?” She offers her visitors cigars, beer, later a coke for the road. “But yes, at such an event you have to pay a lot for a drink. We come from South, not all of us have a lot of money.”

Chihuahua

At a gas station on the Marchantstraat transit road, a group draws attention with loud bangs. They don’t want to give last names. “It’s not all legal,” says Brian with a sense of understatement. “I haven’t heard anything anyway.” The pacemaker, with glasses and a fur collar and the term ‘Pyro’ (fireworks) on his jacket, also does not want to give a first name. He carelessly detonates heavy caliber firecrackers on the sidewalk. Another boy shoots projectiles into the air from his fist. “I still have all ten fingers, look.” The residents in the portico flat seem to be at peace with it. When a toddler boy walks outside with his Paw Patrol light with his parents, it is quiet for a while.

Pascal, 39 years old with cap and earring, has the most to say. He can imagine that there are pets that are burdened by the bangs: “I keep my Chihuahua at home, I protect it.” Furthermore, he finds it patronizing. The fireworks tradition “I want to pass on to my son. They can’t force us, they shouldn’t take this away from us.” The “Dutch” is being taken away a bit again, he thinks. Zwarte Piet, too. He is frustrated with the (local) government; in part this appears to be due to his desire to live on wheels. But the places that the municipality makes available for caravan residents are scarce. He hopes that 2023 will bring change.

Just before 10 o’clock in the evening, on the north side of the center, mayor Ton Heerts enjoys the fireworks show on the Zwitsal site that the municipality offers the citizens as an ‘alternative’. In 2018, the city council already started a ban on fireworks. It is therefore not the ban of Heerts, who took office in 2019. But residents who do not agree, look at him on it.

In certain places, New Year’s Eve has degenerated into norm-free acting, often against authority and the government.

Apeldoorn, and the villages around it, are not inferior to other cities in terms of nuisance, says Heerts. His colleague in Arnhem, mayor Ahmed Marcouch, speaks on Instagram at the beginning of the evening of a “hellish night” that awaits his city. Heerts: “In certain places, Old & New has degenerated into norm-free acting, often against authority and the government. I agree with him: that has to go.”

The support for fireworks is waning, but certainly not extinguished. He says that a majority in Apeldoorn is for a ‘different New Year’s Eve’, as a poll by the municipality in 2019 also showed. But the survey also shows only thirty percent during the turn of the year between six o’clock in the evening and two o’clock experiencing nuisance at night – the problem is mainly caused by the nuisance surrounding it and the severity of the explosions. He knows that ‘his’ fireworks ban does not offer a ready-made solution for this. “Something that thrives in illegality is not just gone.” Heerts speaks of “now organized crime”, given the large quantities of heavy fireworks that have been seized. And large quantities that reach the streets of Apeldoorn anyway.

Shortly after the fireworks show is over, things get more restless. In Apeldoorn-Noord, the wooden furniture on a balcony three high caught fire, one floor is being evacuated. Residents speak of fireworks that came from across the street, not for the first time. Police and fire brigade regularly turn out on New Year’s Eve. Heerts cannot possibly be satisfied with the massiveness in which the firework ban is violated around midnight. “This really takes a number of years,” he believes. “I hope that in time everyone will dare to hit the road, with a beer or a glass of champagne, or alcohol-free. Or here on the grounds, cozy.”

The sky above Apeldoorn-Zuid still lights up incessantly at half past one. A decorative pot, apparently overturned, shoots a ball of fire down the street leading to Bird Square and shatters at the group in front of Ramona’s house. A boy grabs his face, but not too much attention is paid to it. It seems to belong. A little later it goes again.