July 5th 2008
The Night Freedom Was Squelched In Gualala
UPDATED BELOW
A
s the 4th wound down towards evening here on the West Coast, my heart was pouring out to the decent people of Gualala, California, whose 4th of July fireworks show was banned by the California Coastal Commission, much to the joy of a hard core of negative, anti-fun, people-hating nature lovers.
I wrote one piece on the battle for the Gualala fireworks show here. There’s a pretty balanced LA Times piece here.
I had to take another piece off the blog when my First Amendment freedoms were attacked by a Gualalan anti-fireworks advocate who went way beyond the bounds of the debate and tried to get my agency fired by one of my clients for what I wrote.
Fireworks are a remembrance of the battles fought to secure our freedom and a celebration of the freedoms we must fight to protect. It’s symbolic that there weren’t fireworks in Gualala last night, because fanatic nature-lovers have teamed up with the regulatory over-killers of the Coastal Commission to deprive good people of a fun celebration.
I worry that Gualala is just the first to fall, and that soon we will see fireworks shows up and down the coast of California being canceled for no other reason than the celebrations of our nation’s birth keep birds up an hour later.
Update
The Gualala Festivals Committee created the fireworks show to increase summer business, the lifeblood of the remote town. My source on the committee provided me with this update yesterday evening, about an hour before the now-banned fireworks show would have begun:
Sometimes I hate to be right
This is one of those times
Last 2 years all were booked solid by this time
Last 2 years thousands were crowding the streets at this time
Last 2 years the store parking lots were full most of the day
As of 6:30 PM there are vacancies at all hotels and motels – except one
Traffic is driving through town – not stopping
The best restaurant in town – which was booked solid ALL DAY last year – has 2 reservations for tonight and the owner said today was a “financial disaster” for a holiday
The other restaurants similar
The town is almost empty
Tomorrow I will walk the businesses and get a better feel about the actual money issues
Happy 4th of July!
Happy, indeed! A small group of radical environmentalists has put their selfish need to feel they are the saviors of birds that don’t need saving ahead of the very real financial needs of families. Shame on them, and shame on the Coastal Commission for playing along in this game.
The struggle goes on. The Pacific Legal Foundation is suing to return to the Festival Committee the right to celebrate the 4th of July with fireworks so that fireworks can return in 2009. Read more here. Contribute here.
Posted in 1st Amendment, California, Coastal Commission, Environmentalism, Regulatory Madness | 4 Comments » | |
Trackbacks/Pings
Leave a Reply
[The "Comment Box" is WYSIWYG except that you have to double space between paragraphs!
Type it the way you want it to look -- Just remember to double up those line spaces.]
You must be logged in to post a comment.
July 8th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
July 10th, 2008 at 7:37 am
August 17th, 2008 at 9:22 am
August 18th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Comments