Hawaii's governor responds to deadly fireworks blast with proposed $300 fines, more prison time
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Hawaii Gov. Josh Green on Monday proposed a range of new penalties to crack down on those who flout the state's fireworks laws, nearly two weeks after a fireworks explosion at a Honolulu home on New Year's Eve killed four people and injured about 20 others.
The potential new measures include $300 tickets police could issue to those who shoot off fireworks and class A felony charges and decades in prison for those whose use of fireworks leads to serious injury or death. The governor plans to include the proposals in a bill he will send lawmakers for the new legislative session beginning Wednesday.
“We want to deter people from doing this. Three hundred dollars will probably send a chilling effect over a lot of young people, I would expect,” Green said at a news conference. “But getting a major felony on one’s record and doing time in jail, I hope will give everyone pause.”.
State and county officials have struggled for years to contain illegal fireworks in Hawaii, where it's become common for people to launch professional-grad aerial explosives from the streets in front of their homes all year round. Law enforcement officers have seized 227,000 pounds (103,000 kilograms) of fireworks since 2023, much of it from container ships at ports, but also from packages shipped by air. The director of the state Department of Law Enforcement said last week that authorities intercept U.S. Postal Service parcels containing illegal fireworks almost daily.
