While Ohio County Sheriff Tom Howard encourages his deputies to enforce all state laws in the city of Wheeling, the officers will not enforce the city of Wheeling’s new ordinance concerning the possession of illegal fireworks.
Members of Wheeling Council voted in June to increase the fine for the possession and launching fireworks from $100 to $500. Any firework that flies and explodes has been illegal in Wheeling since 1981 on the advice of officials with the Wheeling Fire Department. In most Friendly City neighborhoods, not much separation exists between dwellings.
“There are a lot of different reasons why our deputies will pull people over within city limits, but when it comes to the ordinances that are specific to the city of Wheeling, we do not enforce those,” Howard explained. “Our deputies do enforce the laws of the state of West Virginia.
“That ordinance about fireworks was passed by Wheeling’s council members and it’s up to the officers with the Wheeling Police Department to enforce it,” he said. “It’s out of our hands in the city limits. We just hope people use common sense when it comes to the types of fireworks that are not allowed.”
Legal and Illegal
Within the city of Wheeling, sparklers, fountains, party poppers and snap, smoke devices, and non-propellant noisemakers are legal. Roman candles, bottle and sky rockets, sky lanterns, and anything else that propels into the air, is combustible, explosive, flammable or audible are not.
Some of what is prohibited in Wheeling, however, are legal to ignite in other areas of Ohio County.
“In Ohio County, can have the fireworks that are forbidden in the city, but the state laws also states that you are not allowed to have explosives,” Howard said. “We just hope alcohol is not involved, and we would hope no one would set off fireworks after 9 p.m. If our dispatchers start to get complaint calls because someone is setting them off late at night, our deputies will respond to those calls.
“It all depends on the place where the fireworks are being set off and the time,” he continued. “And there also is a difference with private property and public property, and on most public property out in the county, those kinds of fireworks are not allowed. There are just too many things that can go wrong and there’s a lot of liability involved, too.”
The sheriff also advised Ohio County residents planning to launch fireworks to familiarize themselves with what areas are not within Wheeling’s city limits.
“I completely understand the ordinance in the city of Wheeling because there are not many places where they can be set off safely, but that is different in the county,” Howard said. “But with the amount of land that the city of Wheeling takes up in Ohio County, the new ordinance can be enforced in a large area of Ohio County.
“Because of the areas that have been annexed into the city of Wheeling, the city limits can be confusing for some and if people want to be sure they are not in violation of the new ordinance, they definitely should check where they actually live,” he said. “There are some roadways in the city that enter Ohio County, but then those roads go back into the city. We just want everyone to be safe because my biggest priority is that no one gets hurt.”
