Well, there will be a lot of NJ State Trooper kids happy tonight. They’ll have their own private 4th of July fireworks shows at home from what daddy confiscated on I-78 coming across the bridge from PA. Three people have told me about the bottleneck this caused. Apparently the Troopers put a plainclothes person in the parking lots of the three biggest fireworks warehouses on this side of the river, who was calling NJ license plate numbers over to the Trooper cars lying in wait a mile away across the river on the NJ side, where there was a dragnet pulling people over after they left the store to return home. I guess they’ve got their orders that if they want NJ State Pensions they better beef up the violation take.

Interestingly enough, according to local news, the biggest bumper crop of arrests came from the Phantom Fireworks Store. I once had a discussion on the WebProWorld messageboard with the guy who owns this company, after I bitched about how every year I have to sit outside with the garden hose ready to keep my neighbors from burning the town down with fireworks. He swore up and down that his company only sells fireworks to people who have the proper permits, and got all indignant on me. Yeah, right. At that time his was the only store open on that stretch, but since then they’ve sprouted like mushrooms overnight. We now have four or five fireworks warehouses clustered right around the I-78 exit ramp, which is the one closest to the state border.

So tonight I’ll be outside with the garden hose ready, watching my drunk neighbors ignoring the fact that their city rowhomes are all built of old wood and all close together. And as I’ve said before, I’m REALLY REALLY glad my house is brick with a slate roof.

Technorati Tags: 4th of July Fireworks, fireworks dragnet

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 at 9:31 amunder Personal Stuff and . Comment RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.