A Linwood retailer wants Wellesley to loosen its restrictions on the sale of fireworks, citing the need to remain competitive and to serve customer demands.
Don Schurr, owner of The Corner Store, made his appeal for a bylaw change to township councillors Tuesday night.
“It is necessary to be creative and continually pursue potential sources of revenue to remain viable,” he said. “Recently the option of retailing low-hazard or family fireworks was presented to me but due to the significant cost of properly investing in storage and display cabinets, as well as timely inventory, I hesitated to justify this expense as there needs to be a reasonable expectation of return on investment.”
Schnurr proposed broadening the current bylaw in three areas to include the usage, the sale and the storage of family fireworks.
He asked council to look at additional dates for residents to enjoy fireworks with their families as that would also expand retail opportunities to sell the product.
“I would suggest expanding it to the four major summer holiday weekends, supplying alternate dates for rain dates, and also a provision for special usage occasion.”
Currently fireworks can be used only during the Victoria Day and Canada Day holidays in Wellesley Township.
Schnurr would like to see the two remaining summer holidays, Labour Day and the civic holiday in August, included.
“I see people in town, families go out and buy fireworks in another district and use them on those two long weekends independently – I suggest we facilitate that,” said Schnurr. “It has also been suggested that our township holiday, the Wellesley Fall Fair, could be included and another date that had been suggested was New Year’s as there are a number of ethnic groups that celebrate and would use family fireworks there.”
Schnurr suggested the council expand the time retailers can sell fireworks to the whole summer instead of the current 10 days before a holiday, saying consumers can easily travel to other districts that do not restrict discharge dates to purchase fireworks and return to Wellesley to use them.
“A lot of people that live in Linwood have cottages at Conestoga Lake and there they are allowed to use fireworks all summer long. The changes to the bylaw would allow these families to purchase the fireworks in the township.”
Storing fireworks would fall under the current federal storage guidelines from Natural Resources Canada, which provide a stringent safety standard, he added, noting that would be less burdensome on retailers to store fireworks between selling dates.
“I would rather store the remaining fireworks than be forced to have to dispose of them or find a wholesaler that would accept a returned product,” said Schnurr.
His argument found a supporter in Coun. Paul Hergott, who said he would be looking at the suggested changes and would be drawing up an amended bylaw within the next few weeks for council to approve.
