Lodi officials revamp lottery process for fireworks booths after last year's snafu

Yahoo

07-03-2025

Mar. 7—The City of Lodi is restructuring its fireworks booth application process after a paperwork error caused an uproar among the nonprofit community last year.
The Lodi Fire Department accepts applications from local nonprofits to operate "safe and sane" fireworks booths in the week leading up to Independence Day. All applicants are placed in a lottery and six are chosen to operate booths, given they and the fireworks vendor submit the proper paperwork. Another six are placed in a queue in the event the application process goes awry.
This year, the department will be extending the amount of time nonprofits have to apply for booths.
"My number one concern through this whole thing is safety" Ken Johnson told the Lodi City Council Wednesday evening.
"Any time you're bringing things that explode into the community, it causes me a little concern," he said. "And I want to make sure we have a process where we have good actors who participate in this process and we have a safe season."
The department hosted a fireworks workshop at Carnegie Forum on Monday, and several nonprofits interested in operating booths were given applications for the lottery, which are due by Monday, March 30. Fire department staff and the city clerk's office will take 48 hours to review the applications, and nonprofits must have been in in Lodi for at least one year with a a minimum 10 members who live within the city limits.
The lottery will be held Friday, April 11, where six nonprofits will be selected at random to operate the booths, Another six will be selected as alternates in the event one or more of the lottery winners fail to meet requirements or are unable to participate in fireworks sales.
Lottery winners will have until Friday, May 9 to submit their applications to operate the booths. If a lottery winner cannot operate a booth, an alternate will be notified no later than May 21, and they will have until June 9 to submit an application.
Applications will again be reviewed over a 48-hour period by fire and city clerk staff.
Each nonprofit selling fireworks must have a safety operator on site at all times, and the department will host training classes in early June.
Booths will be set up on Tuesday, June 24, and fire department staff will inspect them on Saturday, June 28. If a booth passes inspection, nonprofits can then begin selling the fireworks until 10 p.m. on July 4.
The revised process comes after all six nonprofits that won last year's lottery were denied the ability to operate booths after paperwork had not been completed.
The six alternates were then chosen to operate the booths, but not before rumors spread that fireworks would not be sold in Lodi due to the denial of the original applicants.
Don Pascarella. a representative of TNT Fireworks, said the revised process was a great effort to make things easier for the nonprofits who sell his company's products.
He said last year's error was a miscommunication with St. Peter Lutheran Church.
"When they submitted the 10 names (of members), one was listed as living on Kettleman Lane," he said. "But it was on Kettleman Lane outside the city limits. You's think, because this church has been in town 100 years, they would have people in the city limits. But they were disqualified."
Johnson said the department has always made it clear that members of a nonprofit must live within the city limits, and that these new 48-hour review periods will help alleviate a lot of miscommunication issues.
Councilman Mikey Hothi said after last year's error, he was glad to see a new process in place and that the fire department was willing to help applicants through it.
"This process has been a nightmare for the last two years," Hothi said. "Especially last year, when all of us were dragged in the media and everywhere else because of shortcomings."