July 3rd Night: North Long Beach, Cal Hts/Bixby Knolls, Wrigley Neighborhoods Describe More Explosive Statewide-Illegal Fireworks, On Edge Approaching July 4

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July 3rd Night: North Long Beach, Bixby Knolls, Wrigley Neighborhoods Describe More Explosive Statewide-Illegal Fireworks, On Edge Approaching July 4

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(July 4, 2016, 9:30 a.m.) -- Residents from areas including North Long Beach, Bixby Knolls/Los Cerritos and Wrigley continued to describe neighborhood disruptive fireworks -- bomb-like devices illegal for individuals to possess or detonate anywhere in CA -- on the evening of July 3 into the predawn hours of July 4...with several residents indicating they expect worse later tonight (the evening of July 4th.)

Some examples from "North Long Beach News" on Facebook:

"Did people forget tomorrow is the 4th not tonight. Sounds like a war zone east of Orange and North of 63rd. It's out of hand."
"Not looking forward to tomorrow night [July 4]. I'm off Orange and 72nd and it's beyond ridiculous. My dog is doped up to the eyeballs because assholes have no thought beyond themselves. I'm having to do shifts with my wife in the bathroom with our dog. I wouldn't be remotely upset if these peoples fireworks landed on their house and it burnt to the ground...."
"Silly me, thought I was gonna come home and get some sleep." If you see a cloud of white smoke coming from Rose and 59th...it will be from my fire extinguisher."
"Can LBPD do anything about this? I mean, obviously everything that is bothering us all is highly illegal."
"It's crazy!! My poor dog!!..."
"It's everywhere. What the #%/* happened. How did this get so our of control!"
"It was also a war zone west of Orange and south of South!!"
"From here (just south of Del Amo & Orange) sounds like the concentration of them is south of South, east of the river, north of Del Amo, west of Cherry."

[Scroll down for further.]

From LBREPORT.com's Disqus [comment] channel:

"...Incredible bomb-like fireworks in North (Jane Addams). I think it was maybe 11 or 11:30 when a police helicopter came out. The whole neighborhood got very quite for maybe 10 minutes then a few hard core knuckleheads resumed the bombardment but at a reduced level. We already had one go off at about 5:45 this morning."

To the south, from the Wrigley Neighborhood Group:

"[They] were in my street. My dogs are terrified."
"The police need to actually see it or someone has to do a sworn statement. These people disrupting the neighborhood don't care about anyone but themselves."
"Two toddlers and a newborn here. My nerves are fried. People and their inconsiderate firework lighting suck so bad right now."
"...[M]y laws just came in to town, what a welcoming feeling for them to have it sound like the world is ending here."
"Really???? Fireworks at this time and they are too laud I'm assuming all my neighborhood heard them, people please I just come back from work I want to sleep oh well.."
"We are on Daisy near Spring and it is close to me. It will be worse tomorrow [July 4]. I just hope they get it out of their systems and finished tomorrow."

As LBREPORT.com reported yesterday, there appeared to be an LBPD presence in the Wrigley area:

"Trying to sleep and all these fire works going off. [Reply]...[A neighbor and I] did a walk earlier after hearing a bunch go off. We couldn't find any culprits tonight but did see Long Beach Police Department (CA) patrolling and gave them a thumbs up. Patrols seem to help so I am very appreciative of that."

Wrigley's nerves were further rattled at about dusk (July 3) by an explosion, followed by lights flickering, and then smoke visible roughly in the area of Spring St. near the 405 freeway. Some speculated it was a blown SCE transformer. [LBREPORT.com called SCE earlier this morning to learn what did or didn't happen; we'll update this story as we hear from them.]

And finally this Facebook comment from a veteran neighborhood advocate and former city staffer: "Neighbors can be inconsiderate by shooting Fire Rockets and mm80s . I am now convinced that all the education on the dangers of fireworks people do not care." It drew responses including:

"...You can call the cops at 10:55 on & say they're violating the 11 pm Noise Ordinance."
"Here we are listening to the Pow Pow from the golf learning center and oil property after 2 fires within a month. Can't tell if is M80s or gun shots. Should we call the police or not?"
"I still call the Police."
"3a last night was ready to."

On July 2, LBREPORT.com invited readers to help us document the extent and locations of neighborhood-disruptive, statewide-banned, pyros and explosives in Long Beach over the July 4th holiday period. By these we're not referring to so-called "safe and sane" whistlers, sparklers and spinners that some cities (including Lakewood) allow and LB bans; we mean the M-80 style bombs and aerial rockets that are illegal to use or possess by individuals anywhere in California.

If you see or hear these bombs or aerial rockets in your neighborhood:

(1) First call LBPD at (562) 435-6711 or 911 and report them [but don't expect an officer to respond; they're swamped] and
(2) Use the hashtag #LBCFireworks and/or go to LBCFireworks on Twitter to document what's taking place on a special page LBREPORT.com has set up for this purpose. You can jump to @LBCFireworks at this link and you'll also find it in the right column on our front page: www.LBREPORT.com.