Socorro Officials Questioned After Ignoring Fireworks Ban

Despite a county ban and dangerously dry conditions, the city of Socorro did nothing to stop people from shooting off fireworks Monday.

ABC-7 spoke with city of Socorro spokesman Dave Garcia on Tuesday about the situation. He tried to explain why people were allowed to shoot fireworks when others weren’t allowed to do that anywhere else in El Paso County.

“Quite a few people wanted to paint us as defiant — we defied this, we defied that,” Garcia said. “Socorro is independent.”

ABC-7 asked Garcia if the game plan all along was not only to allow the sale of fireworks, but also the use, despite the ban.

“I don’t think we let people shoot fireworks,” Garcia said.

ABC-7 reminded Garcia that the station had video of thousands of people in Socorro doing just that.

“They chose not to do what every county, most counties in the state of Texas chose to do,” said County Judge Veronica Escobar, “and what every other municipality within El Paso County chose to do.”

Garcia said they can’t catch everything.

“Just like every officer can’t stop everybody they see in the county speeding, we can’t write a citation for everybody that they say is firing fireworks,” Garcia said.

ABC-7 asked if Garcia knew how many citations were written for the use of fireworks by Socorro police officers.

“Not yet,” he replied. “We don’t have a number.”

Garcia said crews were out in force Tuesday morning cleaning up the area. But it was apparent that they missed a few spots.

“We weren’t too happy with it,” said Marisol Rivera, a Socorro resident who lives across the street from one of the biggest messes made by fireworks in the city. “There were a lot of little fires they had all night. We were worried, but luckily everything turned out OK. There was no consequences because people were just allowed to go ahead and pop fireworks when they said no fireworks.”

Garcia confirmed the city of Socorro made $21,000 in fees off the 21 fireworks stands allowed to set up shop. He could not say how much of that money will be used for cleanup.

Several vendors in the area told ABC-7 that they would have never sold fireworks there if the city of Socorro wasn’t also going to allow people to pop them there.