Cops Send Fireworks To Auction Packages Of Illegal Firecrackers Sell For $1

Police have recovered about half the illegal fireworks mistakenly sent to a recent surplus auction.

The prohibited pyrotechnics - seized by Post Falls police officers during the past several months - were accidentally turned over to a Post Falls auction house with several other items being kept in the department’s property storage rooms. Several packages of the fireworks were sold recently.

“When we go to auction, we have tons of bags of stuff and it was missed,” Police Chief Cliff Hayes said. “The fireworks are actually legal outside the city limits. It was a simple mistake.”

Hayes estimated that about half of the 20 packages of illegal fireworks were sold. The number of fireworks in each package ranged from about a dozen to 50, he said.

The chief described them as “firecrackers and parachutes.” He said they were sold about three weeks ago.

It was not known Thursday who bought the fireworks. Hayes said the person paid only a dollar or two.

“It’s more humorous than catastrophic,” Hayes said.

City ordinance makes it illegal for “any person in the city of Post Falls to sell, possess, keep or store or permit the keeping or storing of any dangerous fireworks.” Explosive pieces, such as firecrackers, and aerial fireworks are among those deemed dangerous.

Kootenai County’s fireworks ordinance limits the sale, possession and use of fireworks to nonaerial items from June 23 to July 4 and Dec. 26-31. It defines nonaerial fireworks as those that travel no more than 15 feet and emit sparks no farther than 20 feet.

Items taken as evidence or turned in to officers that go unclaimed regularly are auctioned off by police and sheriff’s departments. Drugs, guns and other illegal items typically are destroyed when they are no longer needed as evidence.

Hayes said items sold during the Post Falls Police Department auction had been collected as long ago as a year or more. The department has auctions as needed.

Police are careful not to mix found property, such as bicycles and electronic equipment, with things seized by officers because they are illegal, Hayes said.