The first bang sounds at dusk. In the distance, echoing between the high-rise buildings. Then it remains quiet. Not a single ‘boom!’ or ‘bang’, not in all of Shallow. While it’s getting darker and darker. And even if you look at the ground, you will hardly find any remains of firecrackers – apart from a few Thunder Clouds. Not on the squares, not on the playing fields, not in the back places where you expect the stuff.
“Knocking, but it seems a bit quieter,” says Willem Stellinga (65), who has lived in the Utrecht district for seventeen years. “Far fewer explosions than last year.” While in a lively neighborhood like Ondiep, according to the older generation, there is always a ball around this time. For weeks, usually. Like on the square in front of Stellinga’s house, where young people, hanging around the benches, were partying night after night last year. Much to the horror of his five parrots – “very expensive ones, I take good care of them” – who flew through the cage with every blow. “Maybe it will come.”
‘Signal’
Changing a tradition is gradual. So gradually that you might not even notice it. And that is actually also the approach of the municipality of Utrecht, which since this year is one of nineteen municipalities in the Netherlands to impose a private ban on setting off category 2 fireworks. This applies to the entire city of Utrecht and it happened almost quietly, because if you ask residents in Ondiep, not all of them know. And some shrug it off. “Oh, a ban? Oh well.”
The idea is that there will be fireworks after all. And the municipality will not release additional capacity to enforce the ban, she immediately admitted after the announcement in April. The municipality will install cameras at ‘risk areas’ and special fireworks teams will check squares, parks and the surroundings of petting zoos – places that were called ‘fireworks-free zones’ last year.
The ban is mainly intended to “give an impetus to the social trend”, as a “signal” to national politics to increase support for a total ban and to grow as a city towards an “alternative celebration” of New Year’s Eve. That is what a so-called citizen council, a group of 87 Utrecht residents, advised the city council earlier this year. And that took the advice.
We want to slowly change the tradition of New Year’s Eve. This requires support among residents
Utrecht is the first municipality to let residents participate in deciding how New Year’s Eve should be celebrated. The advice is also the first from this citizens’ council, a democratic instrument that the municipality set up in 2023 to come up with solutions for difficult issues such as the fireworks file.
The idea is that this form of citizen participation will reduce the gap between citizens and government. Necessary at a time when democracy is sometimes creaking at the seams and politicians find it difficult to make decisions. In Ireland, such a citizens’ council has previously been successful in the discussion about abortion legislation and in recent years it has also been experimented with in France and Belgium and by some Dutch municipalities.
The subject of ‘fireworks’ was particularly suitable for the first citizens’ council, says Utrecht councilor Eva Oosters (Participation and Events) of the Student & Starters party. “We want to slowly change the tradition of New Year’s Eve and look for an alternative celebration without fireworks. That cannot be done in one go. You need support among residents.”
She did not think so in the municipal council, because so far there were just not enough parties that agreed to a fireworks ban. A “stalemate,” says Oosters. “Parties preferred to wait for a national ban.” In the meantime, a survey among Utrecht residents in 2021 showed that there is enough enthusiasm in the municipality for a ban.
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Interpreters
Two years later, more than eighty people were selected from more than eight hundred applications for a citizens’ council who contributed ideas about New Year’s Eve during a number of meetings. Residents aged fourteen and over, living in all neighborhoods as much as possible, with both theoretical and practical training. They received compensation of more than 400 euros and interpreters, childcare and informal caregivers were available so that everyone could participate.
The deliberation led to eight recommendations about the celebration of New Year’s Eve and especially to the proposed fireworks ban. According to Oosters, this was preceded by a lot of discussion. She is proud of the process – “there were people who changed their minds” – although she also sees areas for improvement. “Such a citizens’ council is quite a linguistic thing. You must be able to express yourself well, both verbally and in writing. Some are better at that than others.” Ultimately, the ban on cutting was adopted by the citizens’ council with 60 votes in favor and 21 against.
There is no one who buys less
A ban on cutting off? Hamed Amarino (58) from Donadoni Vuurwerk in De Meern doesn’t notice much of it. Online sales have been running since September and this year there will once again be long queues in front of his store during the last three days of the year to collect all ordered packages. Amarino has been selling them for twelve years, knows many Utrecht residents “and there is no one who buys less.” Customers will receive a letter from him this year with their fireworks package. “Nice ending and please note: you are not allowed to light the fireworks.” Amarino calls it a wink.
He thinks that his sales may also be going so well because so many other fireworks sellers in the area have closed down in recent years. “I already know two in De Meern, one on the Vleutenseweg, one on the Amsterdamse Straatweg.” They stop because of the uncertainty, because every year the question is whether there will be a national sales ban after all. And also because of the increasingly strict rules: Amarino previously had to purchase a sprinkler system for 30,000 euros for its fireworks storage and this year installed new explosion-proof lamps costing thousands of euros. The old lamps no longer met the requirements.
Photos Dieuwertje Bravenboer
Ornamental
In the past you could buy fireworks at any cigar store, but there are now five points of sale. It is a way, Amarino thinks, to slowly halt sales in the Netherlands. In 2014, the shifting of the starting time on December 31 already contributed to this, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the evening, as did the introduction of the national ban on fireworks and flares in 2020. “Previously, 30 to 40 percent of my sales were children’s fireworks. Astronauts, atomic bombs, fountains and lots of firecrackers. Now everything is ornamental. Young people don’t buy that.”
Amarino, who grew up in the Lombok district, is reminded of his own youth. How he only put his football aside in the days before New Year’s Eve to cross the neighborhood with a backpack full of firecrackers. “We were too young to buy and asked people in line for the fireworks store: ‘Can I walk with you?’ That’s how it was back then.”
The older residents call the explosions ‘bombs’. It makes them ‘tremble’ in their seats
But, he sees, the youth no longer grow up with fireworks due to government policy. “They now prefer to sit behind their cell phones.” And if they do go crazy, it will be with illegal stuff. Cobras – one for the price of two hundred firecrackers – that they have bought online or that come from across the border from Belgium or Germany. “And then you get accidents because the stuff is not approved. But yes, they still want to have a blast.”
“Bombs,” the older residents in Ondiep call the explosions on the street. It makes them “tremble” in their seats. Sometimes a car alarm sounds afterwards. But you hear such explosions all year round, that is not necessarily a New Year’s Eve thing. And although some Utrecht residents are experiencing a decrease in explosions, this is not yet reflected in the number of reports of fireworks nuisance – more than three thousand this year. According to the municipality, this may also have been caused by a new app, which made reporting easy, or because the ban also reduces tolerance for fireworks.
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Aldi
“Oh, what’s the point of a ban? They’re children. That explosion is part of it,” says Zlatka Janklic (63). There are no cobras in front of her door, but the cheaper stuff from Aldi, from across the border. Sometimes she shouts down from her balcony on Boerhaavelaan for those children to stop. It makes her five-year-old granddaughter anxious. “Then those boys will listen.”
An alternative New Year’s Eve, the citizens’ council also thought about that. For example, there will be a countdown moment on December 31 with a DJ and light show on the Jaarbeursplein – the Cathedral will also be specially illuminated – and the city council has made 27,500 euros available per district for initiatives that strengthen the “sense of solidarity”. According to Alderman Oosters, about forty of the submitted plans have been approved. Especially neighborhood and street parties “with oliebollen and a drink”. But also an indoor football tournament, a gaming event, a lights route.
It is not so much about the plans, but about “a step in the right direction,” says Oosters. She wants to create a new tradition in which you go out into the street and wish your neighbors a happy New Year, but – “and that will take years” – without fireworks.
“No decorative arrows either?” Zlatka Janklic would find that a shame. She would miss the fun on December 31 with all those families outside and all those fireworks in front of the door. Smiling: “That’s chaos.”