The year-old state Department of Law Enforcement would get new funding and an increased mandate to crack down on illegal fireworks under pending legislation, which has Pearl City resident Larry Veray hopeful the level of pyrotechnic explosions in isle neighborhoods will decline during holiday celebrations.
Veray, 75, flew on reconnaissance missions over Vietnam as a Navy electronic warfare operator. Decades after the war, he’s transported back to his days in combat whenever he’s outside watching explosions go off in the hillsides around Pearl City on New Year’s Eve, and less so on the Fourth of July when parties are more subdued.
“It just brings back the memories,” Veray said. “It’s the loud explosions, the big booms, because that’s how it was in Da Nang. … I do know vets that have other issues, like the guys that were boots on the ground in Vietnam or Iraq who had those roadside bombs going off. You never know if today’s your day.”
Others also have long complained about explosions and aerial fireworks triggering breathing problems or causing eye irritations — and from pet owners whose dogs and cats shudder in fear or even run away to escape the barrage.
Stephanie Kendrick, director of community engagement for the Hawaiian Humane Society, wrote in support of the latest version of House Bill 806, which would provide $500,000 to the DLE in fiscal year 2025-2026 and again in the 2026-2027 fiscal year to conduct fireworks “sting” operations on Oahu and create an explosives and firearms laboratory.
“The ample evidence that tons of illegal fireworks are still making it onto the local black market despite the successful interdictions at our ports shows that the magnitude of this problem is staggering,” Kendrick wrote.
“Hawaiian Humane has long educated our community about keeping pets safe from the terror of fireworks around New Years and July 4, but these bombs increasingly go off for months at a time without warning. That makes it impossible for pet owners to prepare and creates sustained stress on people and animals, which can do lasting damage to their emotional, mental and physical health.”
If various fireworks bills are approved by Gov. Josh Green, along with increased DLE funding in the state budget, the department would create an eight- person undercover unit and train and support law enforcement on the neighbor islands, and be able to use drone imagery as probable cause for the first time to issue citations or even make arrests.
The state Legislature also passed a bill that increases the penalties for illegal fireworks, including making it a class A felony for causing injury or death.
“Right now, it’s so out of control,” DLE Director Mike Lambert told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “I think people will get the message that this is serious. It’s very possible you can be caught and prosecuted.”
When he was a major with the Honolulu Police Department, Lambert served separate stints overseeing HPD’s narcotics/vice division and the Ke Kula Maka‘i police academy. He said he has zero tolerance for any officer or firefighter involved in — or who tolerates — Hawaii’s illegal, multimillion- dollar fireworks trade.
“To me it’s offensive to be a first responder and then create the issue,” he said, adding that he would have no problem arresting an officer or firefighter involved in illegal fireworks.
Lambert said he also would like to send a message to the community by arresting or citing any government official who ignores their responsibility to seize or report illegal fireworks. “If it does lead to government corruption, we’re going to go all out,” he said.
More than a nuisance
Calls for greater enforcement efforts were taken much more seriously when the Legislature convened just two weeks after the deadly blast at a New Year’s Eve party in Aliamanu that killed six people, injured or maimed dozens of others and led to arrests.
Among the dead was a 3-year-old boy, which hit home for Lambert, who has a child the same age.
He said he believes the deaths, the scope of the injuries and the series of arrests that followed may change public tolerance of their neighbors’ illegal behavior.
“Previous to Aliamanu, it was viewed as a nuisance,” Lambert said. “Now people truly see it as a threat to life. When you’re disfigured for life, there’s no amount of plastic surgery to undo that.”
He called fireworks “gun powder in a tube” that are sometimes stored at home, where they could be set off by mistake, endangering a neighborhood.
Since Aliamanu and the Legislature’s push for greater enforcement, Lambert feels the increased responsibility on DLE and described it as “a huge amount of pressure. The stakes are high because of the injuries and death.”
He declined to go into specifics about the operational tactics of the eight- member undercover unit but said the first two investigators who have been hired so far have “extensive covert investigative experience with HPD.”
Lambert provided no other details on the as-of-yet unnamed unit, other than to say: “They will be participating in the trade — how about that?”
Mounting casualties
In 2000, the Legislature banned aerial fireworks for consumers. On Dec. 30 of that same year, however, an illegal aerial ignited a blaze that burned down the Palolo Valley home of Lillian Herring, 81, killing her and her two dogs.
Then in 2011, the Honolulu City Council banned all consumer fireworks, except for limited amounts of firecrackers that are legally allowed only with permits.
What followed was a literal and figurative explosion in black-market, professional-grade pyrotechnics and aerials that has seen people blow off fingers and thumbs, and even die.
In fact, last New Year’s Eve, 20-year-old Jayson Ramos died from a fireworks blast on Lukela Lane in Kalihi. Other casualties included a 14-year-old boy who suffered burns to his hand from an apparent fireworks blast at Mayor Wright Homes, and a 34-year-old man who suffered a “traumatic hand injury” from a suspected fireworks explosion at an undisclosed location.
Lambert agrees that Hawaii’s fireworks situation has gotten out of control and rejects arguments that people are merely honoring Asian cultural traditions.
“My grandmother’s full Chinese and we had red firecrackers” and the occasional bottle rocket, said Lambert, who grew up in Kaneohe. He recalled that once the clock struck 12:15 a.m., “Grandpa was like, ‘Nuff already.’ We would get scoldings if we did it any other time of the year.”
“Now we’re talking 6-inch stadium shells or straight-out bombs that go off all night,” he said. “That’s not what I remember.”
Community vigilance
Veray knows Lambert from the latter’s days as HPD’s narcotics/vice commander and said he’s a good fit to be in charge of fireworks undercover operations and building cases to move up the fireworks supply chain, from customers to distributors and perhaps importers.
“We need to find who is distributing this,” Veray said. “Who’s the kingpin?”
Veray has documented drug deals in Pearl City and worked with Lambert in the past. He welcomes the DLE director’s pledge to go after first responders and government officials who violate fireworks regulations.
Veray’s doing his part as well to keep his community safe, running his Neighborhood Watch, chairing the Pearl City Neighborhood Board and serving as president of his Waiau Gardens Kai-B homeowners association, where any resident or visitor faces a $500 fine every time they light a single firecracker or even a sparkler.
In the days leading up to each Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve, Veray pounds warning signs into the ground around the complex. “Never,” said Veray when asked how many times fines have been issued.
But it’s a different story outside his condo association.
Asked how early Pearl City residents begin lighting bombs and aerials before New Year’s Eve, Veray replied: “October.”
He agrees with Lambert that the Aliamanu tragedy may have convinced other neighbors to stop ignoring illegal pyrotechnics in their communities and start reporting them.
“There are a lot of people now thinking about what can happen in their neighborhoods,” he said. “We’ve got to take back Hawaii.”
So for this year’s Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve celebrations, Veray hopes that illegal fireworks users start looking over their shoulders, worried about who might be reporting them to law enforcement to face increased prosecution and penalties.
“Now,” Veray said, “they don’t know who’s going to turn them in.”
