By Stephen Smoot
“I live in Enterprise. I’d like to address the fireworks issue here,” said Lloyd Parrish as he opened his statement to the Harrison County Commission. He and others spoke during the public comment period, during which officials cannot interrupt, ask questions, or respond to comments.
“We have a major problem going on down there,” Parrish explained, then added “we have fireworks starting as early as 6 o’ clock in the morning and continuing to 2 or 3 o’ clock in the evening (meaning AM in this context). That has been a daily occurrence for months now.” He explained that he tried to, along with his son, reason with the household involved, but “with no response.”
Besides the problems caused by obnoxious noise at inconvenient hours, Parrish said “we have elderly people . . . veterans having flashbacks. I can’t get my animals outside.” He called the constant noise “elderly abuse” and claimed he knew people who could hear the explosions in East Shinnston.
Parrish suggested that the County adopt the City of Shinnston’s fireworks ordinance. When first read by the Shinnston City Council in 2018, then and current Mayor Patrick Kovalck stated “We don’t want to prohibit fireworks in Shinnston. We are just trying to limit the time that those are detonated. We think the weekend before and the weekend after the fourth of July, New Years Eve, events like that, Labor Day. Fireworks will be allowed in Shinnston, it will just be certain days.”
The Shinnston ordinance limits fireworks use to certain time limits on certain holidays.
Parrish was followed by Virginia Tichner, who told the Commission “I also live in Enterprise and I own a trailer court down there.” She went on to say that “Mr. Parrish is telling the truth,” and included the firing of guns as part of the nuisance to her property. Tihcner also shared that some of the fireworks were shot off from the vicinity of the rail trail behind her property.
Later in the meeting, Commissioners discussed the possibility of passing an ordinance to limit fireworks use, but differently from the Shinnston model. County Attorney Trey Simmerman stated that the earlier proposed ordinance folowed those of other counties, such as Putnam.
Laura Pysz-Laulis brought up that the Commission had considered a fireworks ordinance in 2023 and voted it down. Commissioner David Hinkle asked about the capacity for enforcment, inquiring about how many deputies the County currently had on duty during any given shift. Pysz-Laulis responded that the department mandated a minimum of four, but as many as nine or more could be on duty.
Hinkle stated that “I think it’s a state issue. They opened up a can of worms and they want us to regulate it.” He referred to a law passed by the West Virginia State Legislature in 2016 that opened up sales of Class C or 1.4G fireworks. In 2020, West Virginia University professor Toni Marie Rudnall released a study that found fireworks related injuries had exploded by 40 percent since then.
Simmerman added “I think enforcement is tough . . . it’s like the rail trail ordinance.” He suggested that penalties that can have a “deterrent effect” could help dampen the problem if one or two people were caught and fined.
Susan Thomas, Harrison County Commission President, inquired “if it becomes an issue for the deputies, can we rescind it? I can see both sides.” She later commented “you can’t just expect (sheriff’s deputies) to come from Wallace to Clarksburg or vice versa lickety split.”
Hinkle also stated that he found fireworks set off at inconvenient times obnoxious and that they frightened his dogs too, but doubted that the ordinance could be effectively enforced. The Commission decided to have a first reading of the ordinance at the next meeting after Simmerman included some changes.
