Guys, this tariff business just got serious. It turns out that 95% of the fireworks we use for the 4th of July celebration come from China and tariffs are set to kick in some time in June. Wholesalers and retailers are complaining that they can't absorb the costs.
Maybe they should just pass them along like every other business is going to do. And add overhead and profit to the increased cost at both the wholesale and retail level. In other words, double the cost of fireworks!
I live in an area outside the city limits. In our area fireworks are illegal. A mile away they are legal and somehow the fireworks themselves can't figure out where the limits are located. For years the city outlawed fireworks but the retailers came up with a scam where some percentage of the profits were donated to charities. All of a sudden, fireworks were just fine.
Fireworks terrorize my dogs so if we don't have any on sale, it works for me!
There are always a number of residential fires caused by fireworks as well as a bunch of people heading to the emergency room with blown off fingers and such.
Then there is the use of fireworks to mask the sound of gunfire. There's a lot of shooting into the air. Bullets come down somewhere...
When I was a kid, we used to celebrate "Guy Fawkes Day" in Western Australia.
It was something we inherited from the Brits, & was originally meant to celebrate the foiling of a dastardly plot by Fawkes & some others, to blow up the Houses of Parliament in England.
I got it wrong as a kid, & thought we were celebrating the fact that he tried!

Anyhow, it was a lot of fun, but kids
did get bad burns from time to time, plus the whole idea of people lighting bonfires right at the beginning of the "bushfire season" was a bit stupid, to say nothing of the smoke pollution throughout the city from all those bonfires.
And it freaked dogs out!
For all these reasons, the authorities said "enough!" & banned bonfires & fireworks, except in the hands of experts.
The other States all had similar "Bonfire nights", but they also eventually banned them the same as WA.
I remember going into the big chain stores in Perth, which had special counters bulging with fireworks, from "Penny bangers", or "Tom Thumbs" upward to the more spectacular "Showers of gold", skyrockets, etc.
"Jumping Jacks"were a special favourite!
My generation got our first introduction to "Chinglish" from the instructions on these fireworks, which were all made by firms with Chinese names--- I remember "Chung Man Ling " as one manufacturer.
Whether they were from the PRC, or Taiwan, or elsewhere, I don't know.
Many years later, after fireworks use was firmly in the hands of Pyrotechnicians, & in the jittery months after 911, Perth was jolted by the explosion of the local fireworks factory.
I was on the front lawn, when there was this huge "Bang".
I looked up, & there was this grey "mushroom shaped" cloud just rising above the Escarpment to the East of the City.
Scared the pants off me!