Fireworks Related Advocacy

Consumer Information on Ohio’s Fireworks Laws | Ohio Department of Commerce – click here for basic information about Ohio’s laws and rules regarding consumer fireworks discharge.

Prevent Blindness, Ohio Affiliate maintains of a list (to the best of their knowledge) of localities that have a ban on discharge of 1.4G fireworks in their communities. Click here to view the list.

On November 8, 2021, Governor Mike DeWine signed into law House Bill 172, which legalizes the discharge of 1.4G fireworks in Ohio on specific days of the year. This legislation took effect on July 1, 2022.

This legislation,

* allows Ohioans to buy, possess and discharge 1.4G fireworks on their own property or others’ property with permission. Discharge is permitted 24 hours/day (unless local governments take action to ban or restrict the dates/times further) around the times of 14 holidays each year: New Year’s Day; Chinese New Year; Cinco de Mayo; Memorial Day weekend; Juneteenth; July 3, 4, and 5; and the Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays preceding the following; Labor Day weekend; Diwali; and New Year’s Eve.;

* allows counties, cities and some townships to either ban fireworks or restrict the times and dates that consumers can discharge fireworks;

* requires sellers to give safety pamphlets to buyers;

* imposes a 4 percent fee on top of sales taxes to fund firefighter training and fireworks regulation;

* sets up a 16-member Ohio fire code rule recommendation committee to make fireworks regulations recommendations to the State Fire Marshal;

* allows for relocation of current fireworks businesses before the long-standing moratorium on licenses to manufacture and sell fireworks expires;

*allows fountain devices (a type of 1.4G firework which contains up to 500 grams of “pyrotechnic mixture”) to be sold in retail locations submitting a $25 license fee that is approved by the state fire marshal.

*extends new license moratorium to December 31, 2022.

In an effort to keep Ohioans safe from fireworks-related injuries, Prevent Blindness, Ohio Affiliate encourages local governments to enact fireworks discharge bans within their jurisdictions. Prevent Blindness, Ohio Affiliate has created the following toolkits to ease the local governments’ efforts in creating and passing laws that will ban fireworks discharge in their towns as well as a toolkit for citizens to use in educating themselves on the steps they can take to encourage their local officials to enact laws that ban the discharge of fireworks where they live.