County firework ban could go through July 5th

County Judge Veronica Escobar will said she plans to ban fire works and is asking Governor Rick Perry to extend the ban through July 5th.

It’s hot. It’s dry. It’s a desert in a drought. County Judge Veronica Escobar said after consulting with the state forest service and county fire departments, they all support a ban on fireworks for fear just one spark could ignite a wildfire.

“Many of these families who live in Montana Vista are among the poorest families in El Paso the home that they own is all that they have,” Escobar said. “Many of them don’t have home owners insurance. If there home goes up in flames, their entire life has gone up in flames because we haven’t done our job in putting the needs of the families in that area first.”

But TNT Fireworks Area Manager Fernando Viramontes says her decision is putting him out of business.

“I’m really fed up with being kicked around we had droughts in Texas,” Viramontes said. “We had worse droughts in Texas but we always sold fireworks we promoted education and safety things can work other than an outright ban on fireworks.”

Viramontes and industry representatives have lobbied county commissioners and asked for a compromise, but Escobar says no.

She says creating safety zones hasn’t worked. After consulting multiple counties across the state, they told her the spaces became war zones and they’d never do it again.

“Its been tried and we are in a far more sever drought than those counties were and we have a far more sever water shortage than those counties had why are we going to risk the property of our citizens who live in Montana Vista so that we can make one group happy,” Viramontes said.

Happy is an understatement. Viramontes tells me welding on the railroads and charcoal grills could be just as dangerous:

“We are good people with a good interest and if you want to do something safely than why not the educators in business,” Viramontes said.

The City Socorro has not yet decided if they will ban fireworks.