Mailbag: City response to fireworks fell short on the Fourth

I’m writing this letter to inform you that as of right now (9:50 p.m. July 4), our Mesa Verde neighborhood sounds more like a war zone that would be more commonly found in Baghdad. We have countless, illegal Disneyland-type fireworks being shot off, our animals and children are completely terrified, and several calls to the city’s “zero tolerance” phone number have been met with “thank you, we will take care of it.”

I would like to say, first off, the Costa Mesa Police Department is tasked every year with dealing with these illegal fireworks, and I understand what a large job this is, and the amount of resources needed to try and control this issue. However, even with that being said, I must ask the question, why would you go to the trouble of setting up a hotline to report these fireworks, and go to the trouble of sending out fliers, putting up signs, and asking the residents of Costa Mesa to report any illegal fireworks they see if you cannot handle it or back it up?

I have ended up calling a total of three times to report the same people, and I am met with the same response over and over. I wrote a similar email last year after a similar failure of the zero tolerance system, which when called was met with a constant busy signal, and a crashed online website.

When I sent an email about this the next day, I was met with the response of “Thank you, we are sorry that it did not work as planned and we would do better next year ...” Well? It didn’t work.

This time, however, I must complement the fact that I did manage to get a hold of someone on your phone number this year, but I’m not sure what that did because the people who were reported nearly two hours ago are still out lighting off M-80s, mortars and Disneyland-type fireworks. I do understand that the Police Department is slightly overwhelmed, but please stop making promises that cannot be handled.

Robert Bents
Costa Mesa