Tons of Fireworks Seized (SB Sun 070606)

This is just me a little ol'country boy saying GREAT JOB to those that confiscated all those Illegal Fireworks. The Rialto Police Like Road Block or DUI Check point like Road closure was the Ticket to do and that was great, because I don't know how many houses that you saved from Burning down, but I am happy that you possibly saved mine.

BSRanch

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Tons of fireworks seized

Jeff Horwitz, Staff Writer

Ninety attempts to smuggle illegal fireworks into San Bernardino County over the July 4 holiday weekend ended not with a bang but a bust.

In a DUI-style checkpoint on Highway 127 in Baker, sheriff's officials seized just under 14,000 pounds of pyrotechnics from vehicles returning to the state from Pahrump, Nev., where the sale of fireworks is legal.

"We asked them if we had fireworks, and pretty much everybody said yeah," said Detective Dan Glozer of the sheriff's Arson and Bomb Detail.

In only one instance did he have to use an explosives-sniffing dog to ferret out fireworks, he said.

Deputies stopped 389 vehicles during the Saturday-to-Monday checkpoint, Glozer said. Ninety were stopped for inspection, Glozer said. All 90 were carrying illegal Class C fireworks.

Nevada's Nye County allows the sale of Class C fireworks, although it's illegal to use them there or in most neighboring jurisdictions. San Bernardino County sheriff's officials say most of the state's illegal fireworks originate in the small desert town of Pahrump in Nye County.

San Bernardino County's program was conducted in conjunction with similar efforts by Inyo County, the California Fire Marshal's Office and Nevada's Clark County. Together, Glozer said, the agencies managed to screen most routes from Pahrump into California, an approach Glozer said he hopes to see repeated.

"Next year, we're going to try to expand it, do more days and have more saturation," Glozer said.

All but one of the stops resulted in a misdemeanor citation, which usually results in a fine of less than $1,000. In one case, however, a single vehicle was carrying more than 1,000 pounds of fireworks, making the violation a felony, Glozer said.

Sheriff's officials made their intentions of manning a checkpoint known in advance, but had not identified the exact location.

Detectives began their undercover fireworks-intervention efforts in early May, and have seized around 65,000 pounds of fireworks and issued more than 160 citations, Glozer said.