Recommendation to receive and file a presentation on the status of illegal fireworks outreach, education, and enforcement plans for the Fourth of July holiday.  (Citywide)
Motion carries you item 46, which is also filed which related. Chief Terry. And. Deputy Chief Commission and with the presentation that came up prior to the prior item should be put up now please. Good evening, Mayor. Mayor Garcia and members of the City Council. Mike Derry, I'm be providing you an update with the city's outreach education enforcement efforts leading up to the 4th of July holiday week. Our primary public safety mission is to ensure that residents and visitors celebrate the holiday safely in our city. So at the Spacebar, the Fire and Police Department started planning for the holiday several months ago, as has been consistent over over the past number of years. Public outreach and enforcement will remain the primary focus areas to ensure a safe 4th of July. Outreach education efforts have been designed to communicate the message to residents and visitors that all fireworks, including those marked safe and sane, are dangerous and illegal in the city. That even fireworks that may seem benign can be very dangerous, especially when handled by children. Items such as sparklers and sky lanterns can cause great harm and pose a significant fire risk. The National Fire Protection Administration reports national, a national annual average of 18,500 fires caused by fireworks, including 1300 structure fires, 300 and over 300 vehicle fires . Nationwide, these fires caused an annual average of three deaths, 40 civilian injuries and $43 million in direct property damage. In 2015, hospital emergency rooms treated an estimated of 11,900 people for fireworks related injuries. Children under the age of 15 years old are accounted for, accounted for about 35% of the estimated injuries. As in past years, the city has convened a fireworks stakeholder task force, which includes residents, elected officials, city departments and veterans groups. For the past several months, the fire department has been working with all city departments to coordinate public service announcements, press releases, and communicating that all fireworks are dangerous and illegal in the city. Announcements are also being displayed in highly, highly visible locations such as parks and libraries. Other outreach efforts include posting on electronic marquee signs, fliers, banners, posters and the distribution of hundreds of lawn signs. In addition to utilizing the city's website to get out the message that all fireworks are illegal in Long Beach, the city is using all sorts of social media platforms. We post daily on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media sites trying to increase our reach and approval. This is proving to be a very effective means of communicating. Educational information in Spanish, English, Carmi and Tagalog have also been distributed to Long Beach Area schools and cert volunteers and city staff will begin distributing fliers to residents, businesses and neighborhood associations throughout the city next week. Additionally, the Animal Control Bureau is distributing educational materials to the community, advising pet owners of ways to mitigate the impacts of fireworks on their pets. As you can imagine, the loud noises of fireworks caused pets a great amount of stress and anxiety, leading many of them to run away. Pet owners are urged to keep their pets inside and help spread the message that all fireworks are illegal and dangerous. Excuse me. Another important message we are getting out is to be courteous to our veterans. Many of our nation's military personnel who have served experienced post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Fireworks can cause flashbacks and anxiety for some military veterans with PTSD. Fire staff has met with the Long Beach Veterans Commission. And just this afternoon we met with a contingent of the Veterans Commission to discuss and hear their concerns regarding this issue. Another way we encourage a safe 4th of July is by visiting block parties. Fire crews visit every 4th of July block party throughout the city and speak about the illegality and dangers of all fireworks. BLOCK parties are regulated by the city and permits are required. Organizers must sign a permit that states the block party shall end at 7 p.m. and also stresses that all fireworks are illegal and requires block party permits to comply or participants to comply with applicable federal, state and local laws. Permits will be revoked revoked if illegal activity occurs, and that, of course, includes any use of fireworks. The 4th of July is the busiest day of the year for both the police and fire departments. Last year, the communications center center handled over 3000 calls for service on July four alone. This represents about a 60% increase in a call volume from a normal day. From July 1st to July 5th, 2017. The communications center received over 1200 fireworks related calls in 2017. Police and fire issued 46 fireworks citations. And this is an increase from 2016 in which 33 citations were issued. The police department also seized over £7,000 of illegal fireworks last year, placed this year in an effort to respond to increased reports of illegal fireworks on the night of July one through July five. The fire department will deploy two additional patrol vehicles, each staffed with two arson investigators. These additional units will work in conjunction with the police department's proactive patrols. Patrols will continue to target areas of the city historically known for frequent use of fireworks, as well as respond to reports of illegal fireworks activity citywide. Anyone cited or arrested for fireworks violations may be issued a $1,000 fine, sentenced to jail for up to six months or both. Issuing citations for fireworks use is also uniquely challenging, as an arson investigator or police officer must witness a person in the act in order to issue the citation. Additionally, citations are often confrontational and arson investigators and police officers. Safety is a primary concern. Fireworks may be this year voluntarily disposed of at collection bins, which are located at all fire and police stations and at lifeguard headquarters. These measures are being implemented to encourage the Long Beach community have a safe 4th of July holiday. The best way to do this is to leave the fireworks up to the professionals. There are two professional fireworks displays in Long Beach this year, one on July 3rd at Alamitos Bay and the other on the 4th of July at the Queen Mary. Mr. Mayor, council members, this concludes my presentation with me here tonight. Our police chief, Robert Luna, is up in the audience, Deputy Chief Wally Bosch and Deputy Chief and our fire marshal Rick Brandt, are here to answer any questions you may have. And that concludes my report. Thank you. That's one place. Thank you. I wanted to thank the representatives from police and fire who are here this evening. You do an amazing job getting ready for the third and 4th of July and executing your strategy on both of those days. I see a lot of the efforts that you are involved in throughout the year, but especially on the third and 4th of July in my district. So I want to thank you and your team for the great work that you do. I think the outreach and education efforts that Long Beach Fire has done and specifically what we did last year was really tremendous and that it was definitely increased from prior years and I think I felt a difference. Even though some residents reported seeing an increase. I do believe that there was some many instances that were mitigated as a result of messaging and public outreach. So I thank you for that work. I also want to thank you for working with the residents in our district. Sometimes I know it's difficult when you're experts in a subject matter to have residents who maybe aren't experts in that field suggest better ways of doing things. But I think that both departments were really excellent in serving as a as a resource to the committee of residents. And truly, this was a grassroots effort by concerned residents to try to make a difference in their community. And I think police and fire working with them demonstrates our commitment to service and public input. So I thank you for your graciousness and indulging them. So thank you very much. Thank you, Councilmember Supernanny. I'd also like to thank you for the report. And great job as always. And thanks for staying late to deliver it. Thank you. Somebody went to. Take you there. I want to commend you on an excellent report. This is something that has been very close and dear to me in my district. I attend many community meetings and this issue always comes up in terms of what are we going to do this year about the increase in fireworks? Last year, there were lawn signs, I think, that were effective and I had a number of them in my district office that will be making those available again so that I can distribute. Councilmember Yes, in fact, we have ordered a number of those lawn signs. You're starting to see them spring up at starting with fire stations and police stations throughout the city. Today, in fact, we even took it a step farther and we're going to produce some lawn signs that specifically address our veterans community, alerting neighbors that, you know , a veteran or, you know, be be kind to our local veteran community because fireworks can have adverse impacts on them. So, yes, you will see those. They'll be available at fire headquarters and other places throughout the city in the coming days. Gate Do I have my staff to direct my staff to contact you directly and or a fire station in my area or what? Councilmember If somebody from your staff were to reach out to fire headquarters, speak to somebody in our community services division, probably Jake Heflin will be able to get those signs to you in the next couple of days. I appreciate that. And I think that that Long Beach app would be an excellent way of also being a deterrent to the people who are who who need to be caught in the act. Unfortunately, that's what we do. That is a great obstacle in terms of being able to get more citations and get the word more spread out in terms of the the the illegality of having fireworks. But if people are are caught in the act, I think that that would be a great deterrent. But thank you. Vice Mayor Richardson. Thanks, Mayor. Just wanted to just chime in at every year, you know, we go out, we do education. You know, sometimes we do bus and things. I remember when we collected thousands of dollars of illegal fireworks. All good work. And every year seemed like fireworks. It continues. And I know that I'm echoing sentiments. Other other folks have said it seems like the issue continues to grow and perpetuate of where I am. We border, Compton, Paramount, Lakewood, Bellflower, all different rules and fireworks and all those different cities it's almost impossible to keep up with from one side of the district. Sounds like a war zone. The other side might be a little bit more quiet. So I want to just lift up two things. So, one, I like the idea of an app or technology. I think there has to be some sort of technology solution that helps engage local residents into helping to self-police their own communities. I mean, the lawn signs gave them a tool to start that I actually saw on certain blocks. The people who engage with a lot of signs, I saw that they you know, they saw an immediate response that those blocks where people engaged with those lawn signs, they stopped doing it. Maybe the block over was doing it, but those particular blocks stopped doing illegal fireworks. I think we if we really took some time and thought about how to leverage the app, we might be able to figure something out. Secondly, I had this idea before, and I think we should pick some areas, some random areas around town where we literally set up some things like we can literally set it up in a park, let's say let's say Coolidge Park or the Forest Park or whatever. You grab a park, you, you know, you set up a tent. It is your firework fire watch for the neighborhood and it's randomized your firewatch. And guess what? From that place you do targeted sort of education, outreach and and enforcement all surrounding that area. And then the next year you pick it up somewhere else. I just think something like a visible, hey, we are here, we see you, we all catch you and we're not going anywhere. We're going to be right here at this park and we're going to see everything in this and, you know, surrounding areas, something like that. We should we should try because at a minimum, we'll be able to show the residents, hey, you know where we were. We weren't in your neighborhood this time. We can be in your neighborhood next time. It's limited resources, but we have to sort of, you know, begin that process. So just an idea. Every year folks have ideas. We try to figure this out. And, you know, that's just what we have to do. That's our plight. Thanks, Candy. Think about that. The chief, the roving sort of a firewatch and different parks or neighborhoods. Mr. Vice Mayor, I can tell you that the fire department and the police department actively are doing our best to engage the community throughout the city of Long Beach in community meetings and meetings that we've invited city staff to and community members to, certainly we would we would consider anything that would hands our ability to reach the community and inform them on the dangers and the illegality of fireworks. So it's something that I think we would consider and we talk through the best way we could possibly carry like carry something like that out. Sure. I see no public comment. We're going to go and just vote on this item. Thank you. Okay. We have it is it is midnight and going to be we have 17 more items. I'm going to go now to hearing item number two.