Supervisors approve fireworks ordinance

A public hearing on the proposed Chickasaw County fireworks ordinance, which sticks to an Iowa law adopted in 2017, went off without incident last week.The second and third readings were waived, and the ordinance passed into law.The ordinance does a couple of main things:• It authorizes a licensed, inspected vendor to come in and sell consumer fireworks in unincorporated areas of the county in a temporary or permanent structure.• It authorizes use of consumer fireworks in general in unincorporated areas on private property during permitted dates — 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. June 1 to July 8, Dec. 10 to Jan 3 — and hours, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. generally, except until 11 p.m. on July 4 and the Saturdays and Sundays immediately before and after.The consumer has to shoot within those dates or it’s illegal because the county cannot give a permit for “consumer fireworks,” Assistant County Attorney Mark Huegel said.— For more on this story, see the June 26 New Hampton Tribune.