The rules have changed for ’07

The past couple of years have seen the Fire Service and Police involved in a huge amount of work responding to the actions of people who were either careless, or just plain stupid, with fireworks. Hundreds of fires have been caused by fireworks, people have been injured and thousands of dollars of damage done to property. In response, the government has toughened up the rules.

This year, you won’t be able to buy fireworks unless you are aged 18 and over. This is a big step up from last year, when retailers could sell to anyone aged 14 and above.

Fireworks can only be sold between 2 November and 5 November. That’s a big cut from the 10-day sale period last year.

And in response to concerns about people bundling sparklers together to make “sparkler bombs”, there are now a number of restrictions in place:

sparklers can’t be sold separately
sparklers can be sold only in packages containing at least three other fireworks
no more than 50 sparklers can be sold in any one package of fireworks