Three years into a citywide ban on shooting and selling fireworks in Lawrence, Jerry Pine says business has since rebounded at his family’s decades-old fireworks stand at the Tee Pee Junction, north of the city.

“People are finding places with friends and neighbors, even going outside of the county,” he said.

As Tuesday’s Independence Day holiday approaches, outside the city residents are free to explode and light fireworks – except bottle rockets, M-80s and cherry bombs – to their hearts’ content from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday and Monday and from 7 a.m. to midnight Tuesday.

In the city, party poppers, snappers, snakes and sparklers are allowed.

Even though the Topeka City Council lifted its fireworks ban a year ago and allowed residents to use fireworks in the city, the current Lawrence Commission has shown little interest in revisiting the ban approved in late 2002.

Mark Bradford, chief of Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical, has said that if asked, he would continue to recommend the ban remain in effect based on national data.

Nationwide during 2005, four people died in fires and accidents caused by fireworks, according to a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission report. The report also estimated that fireworks were involved in 10,800 injuries, up from 9,600 in 2004, which follows an upward national trend of firework-related injuries since 1996.

Grant Blodgett, 14, of Perry, sets up some of the family's fireworks Tuesday at a stand just off U.S. Highway 24 and Ferguson Road in Perry. As of Tuesday, fireworks are legal to sell in Jefferson County.

Children younger than 15 account for 45 percent of estimated injuries. Burns accounted for more than half the injuries, and the report attributed fireworks exploding earlier or later than expected as a typical cause.

Last year, Lawrence police officers responded to 294 complaints around the holiday, and police received 300 complaints during the first year of the ban.

Aside from the scheduled professional firework displays, Douglas County firework vendors who have a permit can open for business on Sunday and make sales through Tuesday.

Judy Stone, of the Douglas County Planning and Codes office, said 14 vendors have filed the necessary paperwork. Stone said fewer vendors sought permits the first holiday after the city’s ban, but now the number is comparable to earlier, pre-ban years.

Pine and his family have sold fireworks in the county for 59 years. He advises customers to take the precautions of wearing safety glasses and obeying all laws.

But he said he considers an all-out ban counterproductive because it can keep younger generations from learning how to properly use fireworks.

“Once you take fireworks from a community, the fireworks then get into the wrong hands, and then there are problems,” he said.

As for those who want to light their own fireworks, Pine said education is the best way to prevent injury and property damage.

“If we can get any customer to use (fireworks) safely, we will be able to have that freedom in coming years,” he said.

The Lawrence Jaycees will put on their annual Fourth of July Fireworks Extravaganza at 8 p.m. Tuesday evening at Burcham Park, 200 Ind. The firework show will begin about 9:30 p.m., and the Journal-World is sponsoring the buses.