photo by: Nikki Wentling

Some of the fireworks confiscated from a Fourth of July gathering at 302 E. 15th Place.

Lawrence Police Officer Ryan Robinson drove his patrol car slowly along East 15th Place about 10 p.m. Monday, headed toward a spot where the street dead-ends and a group of neighbors were gathered for a Fourth of July party.

Robinson, responding to a fireworks complaint, had just seen an artillery shell firework shoot up from the spot and explode into the sky. Debris from all kinds of fireworks — fountains, firecrackers, Saturn Missiles, Roman candles — littered the street at the dead-end.

Several families, about 30 people in all, met Robinson with stares when he got out of his patrol car at 302 E. 15th Place, where the families had set up three rows of lawn chairs to watch their show. They looked on as he sorted — with the help of one of the men in the group — the illegal fireworks from the legal ones; loaded them into a 150-quart Igloo cooler; and dropped them into the back of his old Crown Victoria.

The officer took what he guessed was hundreds of dollars’ worth of fireworks and tossed them in a dumpster behind the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical training center off Haskell Avenue. He hosed them off, and a fire crew came by later to flood it.

The fireworks complaint was just one of dozens Robinson responded to during his 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift from Monday evening into early Tuesday. At 1:30 a.m., dispatch was still getting calls about people shooting off fireworks.

At the city manager’s direction, Lawrence Police Chief Tarik Khatib said an effort would be made this year to more strictly enforce Lawrence’s 14-year-old citywide fireworks ban.

Lawrence police ended the holiday weekend with 19 citations and 186 warnings for fireworks violations.

It was the most citations given for fireworks in the past eight years, besides in 2014, when officers handed out 44 of them from June 30 through July 6. On average, police issue nine citations and confiscate fireworks in 17 instances each year, according to data provided by Khatib.

Dispatch also received the most fireworks complaints over the weekend than any other year since 2008. According to a police department release, dispatch received 311 fireworks-related calls, up from the next-highest of 261 in 2015.

Fire Medical Division Chief Eve Tolefree said there was “not a single injury” over the holiday weekend and a crew responded to only one dumpster fire that was fireworks-related.

To better enforce the fireworks ban, Khatib added extra officers over the weekend at a cost of about $4,500.

“It’s difficult to deal with just fireworks calls,” Khatib said when announcing the plan last month. “It’s hard to predict. There’s always something that can come along that will absorb those resources.”

On Monday, Khatib planned for four extra patrol officers, one of which was Robinson.

Driving around the southeast quadrant of Lawrence, going between places where fireworks were being shot off and the dumpster where confiscated ones are destroyed, Robinson checked the monitor in his patrol car, which listed call after call of fireworks complaints.

Once he assigned himself to a call, Robinson would stop at homes along the way where people were shooting off fireworks. He’d explain the ban and take any illegal fireworks remaining.

Some of the adults gathered on East 15th Place said they knew of the ban, and that they understood why Robinson had to confiscate their fireworks. Most of the large group stood by the street and waved goodbye as he drove off with them.

“We know… it’s a busy night,” called one man, who had earlier pleaded to keep a 500-gram multishot cake.

Two of the people Robinson talked to between 9 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. said they were unaware of the ban.

About 11 p.m. Monday, Robinson, responding to a call from a resident on Irving Court, crept east on 17th Street with his lights off until he spotted a man and two children throwing firecrackers into their yard.

The father there — the only person to receive a citation from Robinson that night — said he didn’t know of the ban and asserted the fireworks vendor told him he could shoot them off in Lawrence.

Robinson said it was “challenging” to find an instance in which a citation could be given. According to the local fireworks ordinance, officers have to see someone igniting fireworks in order to issue one. At 302 E. 15th Place, Robinson saw fireworks go off, but he didn’t witness anyone light them. Fireworks can still be confiscated because they’re contraband.

Besides that, police can’t issue citations to minors and instead would have to take them to the Juvenile Detention Center for a full offense and arrest report.

Khatib had told the City Commission of the same challenges back in May, when a group first went to commissioners asking for better enforcement.

Khatib has suggested the same amount of resources dedicated this year be dedicated to enforce the ban for the next several years, in order to track data and determine whether it helped.