Bob Mackin
More than 40% of the permits issued in 2024 to ignite fireworks on Halloween in the District of North Vancouver went out-of-district, including to applicants from Tacoma, Edmonton and Yellowknife.
Trick or treat
A list obtained by theBreaker.news under freedom of information shows the District sold 566 permits last year for $5 each. theBreaker’s analysis shows 325 applicants listed fireworks detonation addresses in the District while 241 gave addresses from elsewhere or, in a few cases, no street address.
Permit buyers in B.C. spanned mostly from Powell River to Chilliwack, with an outlier in Kelowna. Amateur fireworks displays are outlawed in B.C.’s two-biggest municipalities, but Vancouver (39) outnumbered Surrey (18).
Some applicants listed non-residential detonation sites like the Capilano University soccer field and Blueridge Park in North Vancouver and Morley elementary school in Burnaby.
The permit buyer furthest south was from Fox Island, Wa., near Tacoma. The Yellowknife applicant provided an email address, not a physical location.
More buck for the bang
Fireworks in North Vancouver on Halloween 2023 (Mackin)
For Halloween 2025, which falls on a Friday, the permit now costs $10. Anyone in the District or elsewhere who is aged 19 and up can apply from Oct. 25-31. They need permission from a private property owner in the District of North Vancouver to detonate fireworks between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Halloween only.
Spokesperson Ryan Schaap said Mayor Mike Little was unavailable for an interview on Oct. 30.
“The issue regarding non-District discharge addresses for fireworks permit applications was identified last year and has been corrected for this year,” Schaap said. “Now permit applicants can only enter an address in the District of North Vancouver.”
The online form includes a disclaimer that warns the discharge permit is void if the location of display is not within the District of North Vancouver.
Ban proposal fizzled
The 566 permits in 2024 represented a substantial increase from the 198 sold in 2023.
In January 2024, Coun. Jim Hanson’s motion to ban amateur Halloween fireworks fizzled when Little and three other councillors, Jordan Back, Herman Mah and Lisa Muri, voted to keep the tradition going.
Little called fireworks “community building” despite Hanson and a staff report pointing to community danger, such as harm to pets and wild animals, injury to humans, pollution, house fires and the risk of wildfires.
Of the 28 municipalities surveyed, the District of North Vancouver was among a minority of eight that still allow amateur fireworks.
Little quote
Said Little in January 2024: “It’s something, at Halloween time, that you don’t experience in other parts of Canada, anywhere near the same as you do experience here.”
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