I was going to write about the trash cleanup for post 4th of July, but this year this whole holiday has gotten me upset. I’ve always hated how people just leave all their trash after the 4th and every year something like 4 thousand pounds of trash are picked up the next day by volunteers. This year was much different.
This year was the biggest crackdown in Santa Cruz county in 2 decades as police combed the beaches for fireworks and alcohol. Living a block from the beach, I got to experience this first hand. I was quite upset as I saw our beaches fenced off and police checking every bag and cooler for fireworks and alcohol. Honestly I thought this was way too much policing. Some people had to go through as many as 5 checkpoints before they could even get to the beach.
Last I heard the 4th of July was about Freedom. PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY are the source of freedom. So many have lost sight of this fact. It sounds like too many people are too willing to give up too much in order to try to make their world 100 percent safe. We shouldn’t expect our government to have to protect us to the level where absolutely nothing bad can happen to anybody. This is not possible. This is not living.
I can understand the ban of fireworks because of the large amount of fires going on this year and the high risk, but the beaches? I fail to see how banning fireworks from the beaches reduces wildfire risk. Last I heard sand and seawater aren’t combustible. Also, my recollection is that fireworks-related wildfires seemed to increase when people were prohibited from setting off so much as a sparkler in their driveway. Perhaps they should be encouraging people to take fireworks to the beach in lieu of other places.
In previous years they had even set aside a fireworks lighting area on the beach near my house and a firetruck and ambulance were always on hand in case of an injury or fire. In fact no major fireworks injuries have been reported in the Santa Cruz area for over 20 years.
Despite all the police, people did manage to sneak in some fireworks and at about 10 pm fireworks started going off, although much much less then in previous years. I guess people just decided to risk a citation at that point.
But there is one positive thing. There was much less trash this year to pick up, in fact the beach the next morning was almost clean…
Keep our Beaches Beautiful and Clean!
