Taxpayers Left With the Clean-Up

Denise Bell
Post Managing Editor

July 6, 2009

Celebrating American independence in unrestrained abandonment, hundreds of people gathered along the
U S Highway 80 service road Saturday evening to “pop” fireworks purchased from stands that clutter the entrance to the Forney.

Alamo and other firework stands located at the Lawson Road exit of U S Hwy 80 did not appear to have lines or crowds nearly as big as last year but none the less they continued to “wave in” customers right up until closing time.

K&L Fireworks opened a “buy here pop here” location at the Clements Road exit of the Hwy 80 service road and its customers, along with many others motorists, clogged the service road intersection and a quarter mile stretch of Kaufman County Road 225.

Starting at dusk, vehicles began arriving at the intersection and as soon as it became dark the “popping” started.

Located at the Bodin Concrete Forney Plant, the property is located just across from Knox Fuel and Subway Restaurant, and is but a mere few yards from the Forney City limits sign.

Bodin Concrete represents itself as a Forney business but the privately owned parcel of land is within the Forney ETJ and therefore not in the jurisdiction of Forney Police.

K&L Fireworks, like all the other firework operations in the county, openly invited their customers to “purchase and pop” right next to their stand, and hundreds of holiday revilers accepted their invitation.

Viewing the attached pictorial, Post readers will notice the packed quarter mile stretch of County Road 225 where both large and small fireworks were ignited.

Adults and children were packed along the edge of the Bodin Concrete field, as well as along the adjacent service road. And smoked literally filled the air as fireworks were ignited on the road, between cars, and out of the beds of trucks.

Unconcerned individuals continuously ignited fireworks extremely close to people and passing vehicles, and incredibly enough, one very intoxicated individual stuck a bottle rocket into a bale of hay and ignited it, only to become frustrated when the bottle rocket fell from the hay bale and ignited the grass before burning itself out a few minutes later.

For hours on end, the unlit, dead end side street provided the perfect environment for a highly dangerous “party” atmosphere which went un-policed by either county officials or the property owner.

As with all holidays when the sun came up the party was over. And now the county and its taxpayers are left to clean up the trash, or to stand by and watch it eventually blow into Forney.

Perhaps in future years, Kaufman County officials should invoice firework stand owners for the cost of clean-up?