With Trump’s plans for America’s 250th in mind, Iowa lawmakers don’t want cities to limit fireworks

By JOHN HANNA
Associated Press

Iowa lawmakers want President Donald Trump to know that their state is eager to be at the center of next year’s celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday and shares his vision of fireworks filling the skies — so much so that they don’t want local officials blocking any small, neighborhood displays.

The Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill this week that would ban local limits on people setting off their own rockets, mortars, aerial spinners and Roman candles on July 3 or 4, or Dec. 31. There was nothing to stop big, public shows — say, a Fourth of July display as part of Trump’s proposed “Great American State Fair” in Iowa’s capital of Des Moines — but a relative handful of cities, including Des Moines, haven’t allowed people to shoot them off, even on the nation’s birthday or New Year’s Eve.

The bill headed to Republican Gov. Kim Reynold’s desk after the state House approved it Tuesday, 51-39, with the GOP majority overriding Democrats’ concerns that it could undermine fire safety or harm military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Des Moines and at least six of its suburbs, as well as the cities of Ames, Cedar Rapids and Dubuque bar people from setting off their own fireworks even on Independence Day.

In arguing for the bill, Republican state Rep. Bill Gustoff quoted founding father John Adams’ desire for national celebrations involving parades and “illuminations” of fireworks, from “one end of this continent to the other.” Gustoff, who is from the Des Moines area, also cited the proposal Trump first floated in 2023 to have a yearlong national exposition on the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.

“Mr. President, we welcome that idea in Iowa and we’re ready, willing and able to host the party,” Gustoff said during Tuesday’s short debate. “We need to enable Iowans to be part of that celebration.”

While communities around the world have celebrated events with fireworks for hundreds of years, people’s fondness for setting them off themselves has often been a bane of local police and firefighters. Still, only one state — Adams’ home of Massachusetts — imposes an outright ban on their use by individual consumers.

For years, Pennsylvania only allowed the use of sparklers and similar novelty fireworks. But in 2017, it permitted the sale of the full array of products, only to narrow those sales in 2022 to July 2-4 and Dec. 31 amid complaints. Georgia ended a decades-long ban on consumer fireworks in 2015 and doesn’t allow cities and counties to restrict them.

Iowa banned consumer sales of fireworks for decades, spurred on by a June 1931 fire that engulfed about 100 buildings in the small town of Spencer, which started with a sparkler at a drugstore. However, in 2017, Iowa lawmakers allowed cities and counties to license firework sellers and allow people to set off fireworks from June 1 through July 8 and from Dec. 10 through Jan. 3.

Iowa state health department data shows that in 2017, the number of fireworks-related emergency room visits in Iowa nearly doubled from 2016 and remained higher than pre-legalization levels through 2023. The state associations for fire marshals, fire chiefs, firefighters and emergency managers, opposed the fireworks law, as did the Iowa League of Cities.

Democratic state Rep. Larry McBurney, from the Des Moines area, said the flash, noise and smell of gunpowder from fireworks can trigger veterans’ PTSD. Fellow Democratic state Rep. Eric Gjerde, a Cedar Rapids police officer, said people who call to complain about fireworks in his city often think they’re hearing gunfire.

“We have to take every single one of those extremely seriously, so we send multiple officers to investigate,” he told his colleagues.

Fireworks manufacturers and retailers supported the bill, as did the state association for retail stores and the small-government, free-market group Americans for Prosperity. But in arguing in favor of the bill, Gustoff cited next year’s celebration of the Declaration of Independence’s signing in 1776.

“Current law allows a patchwork of ordinances that are a trap for the unwary, patriotic American in Iowa who simply wants to celebrate Independence Day the way it was intended by our founding fathers,” he said.

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Associated Press Writers Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa; Jeff Amy in Atlanta and Marc Levy, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, also contributed.