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Fireworks, Long a German New Year's Eve Tradition, Are Losing Their Luster (nytimes.com) 135

Posted by msmash from the meanwhile-elsewhere-in-the-world dept.
Fireworks have long been a staple of New Year's Eve celebrations in Germany, with revelers setting off their own pyrotechnics in the annual reverie of booze and exuberance known in the country as "Silvester." But for the first time this year, Berlin will join dozens of other German cities and communities in instituting a partial ban on private fireworks, with three zones in the capital designated fireworks free on New Year's Eve. From a report: Most official and private fireworks displays will continue as normal -- including the spectacular show at Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate -- and skies over much of the country will still be alight, saturated with the sound of millions of tiny explosions. But as the decade comes to a close, Germany's commitment to one of its most enduring New Year's Eve traditions seems to be wavering. The reasons vary: Berlin's ban is focused on public safety, while Aachen, a town in western Germany that limited the use of high-flying fireworks, is worried about potential damage to its historic buildings. And some areas pointed to environmental and health concerns over the fine dust particles created by the explosions.
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Fireworks, Long a German New Year's Eve Tradition, Are Losing Their Luster More

Fireworks, Long a German New Year's Eve Tradition, Are Losing Their Luster

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  • All hands on deck at the hospitals that night!
    • ...which oddly enough is both the cause and the effect in this case.

    • I get if you don't get that.
      The "being alive" part.

      It used to be what the 80s were about.

      It is the enemy of the 2020s, apparently.

      Watch out for when YOUR kids rebel against that.
      With no experience with being alive, from being oversheltered, they will kill the anxiety pussy lineages in droves.

      Now go, call me a "boomer". (I'm Gen X, apparently. Although only America uses these silly categorizations.)

      • Although only America uses these silly categorizations.

        Other countries use some terms like Wirtschaftswunderkinder, Generation Käfer or Generation Golf.

  • fireworks imports doubled this year.

    • Re:bunch of bullshit (Score:4, Informative)

      by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @01:33PM (#59573920) Journal
      Half of that might have been bought by us Dutchies :)

      People in the border region tend to get their fireworks from Germany. Better selection and better prices.

      • People in the border region tend to get their fireworks from Germany. Better selection and better prices.

        Strange . . . I'm in Germany, and bought a rocket battery shaped like a coffin. The main instructions were in Dutch, so the trade seems to go both ways. It was made in China, of course.

        In Germany, a lot of folks cross the border to buy dangerous bomb-sized "firecrackers" [sic] that are illegal here and haven't been tested for safety.

        A Polish guy told me that they get their fireworks from the Russians.

        Oh, ain't this Globalization grand!

    • That's not for German consumption. It's amazing how many fireworks are imported to Germany simply because the Netherlands has stricter safety requirements. A *LOT* of German imported fireworks are then exported again.

  • private ones are band in parts of the usa but the cops really don't give much of dam about it.

    • Yep: but they're not much of a tradition on New Year's Eve ... for a fun time, go to Washington Heights in NYC on July 4th. Cops do pretend to care, but illegal private fireworks shows still happen.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      It's not that US cops don't care but rather are often overwhelmed. In addition to arresting people for fireworks, they have their regular duties and the assisting of fire-fighters dealing with higher-than-normal fire counts. When people learned the cops were overwhelmed, even more joined in, causing a feedback cycle: the more that cheat the less the likely penalty for cheating.

    • They are banned in various counties and cities and you have to be careful if you have an open package of fireworks when passing through small towns with speed traps. I happen to know this first hand (they are not banned where I live but they are in the county just north of me).

      Watch out for those poor small towns the cops there will stop anyone not local, harass, and fine them for anything they can find.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • hey they're some green (Score:3)

    by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @11:43AM (#59573568)

    Fireworks use black powder, charcoal is the fuel with a nitrate oxidizer. That's biofuel, baby.

    just ignore the 10% sulfur, besides the stink for that helps cover the beer farts

    • The various heavy metal salts included in the mix to create differently coloured flames are generally toxic to one degree or another.

      • Re:hey they're some green (Score:4, Informative)

        by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @04:33PM (#59574642)

        actually many aren't, a couple are. Not really a concern as too dilute in concentration for those on the ground from fireworks in the air.

        red - strontium carbonate, not classified as hazardous according to its MSDS

        orange - calcium chloride, used in food

        yellow - sodium nitrate - preservative, used in food

        green - barium chloride - okay that one's a problem

        copper chloride - blue - another problem

        • After combusting, wouldn't the chemical properties change enough that the properties of the chemicals causing the color change would be altered to something else in the smoke produced? Seems like that could alter what is or is not hazardous.

          Still, I wouldn't linger in the barium chloride smoke for long just in case... bound to be some un-burned particles that make there way into the smoke.

          • After combusting, wouldn't the chemical properties change enough that the properties of the chemicals causing the color change would be altered to something else in the smoke produced?

            There's no chemical reaction that consumes 100% of the reagents You should be ashamed at yourself for even suggesting that.

          • No, they'd still remain as heavy metal compounds. While some are essential nutrients, others are toxins, and cumulative ones, for which there is no metabolic pathway for excretion. Good materials to avoid.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • How much? On a scale from zero to "more than I'd care to stand down wind of", more than I'd care to stand down wind of.

          If I lived downwind of a place where they did this regularly, I'd be requiring the promoters to pay for jet-washing my property as a hazardous waste site after each event. That should piss on their profit margins and public liability insurance charges quite nicely. Should attract the ambulance-chasing scum of the lawyer industry too - let them do something worthwhile with their miserable l

  • Light a firecracker almost anywhere in the US and you get fined. We're only free from the King but not ourselves.
    • Anything above a sparkler is illegal where I live and yet several of my neighbors seem to outdo themselves year after year with professional mortar displays worthy of a small township. Apparently, off the books, they have been selectively decriminalized in random areas.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        They're technically illegal in my state (though they legalized sparklers a few years ago), but the neighboring states are about an hour away on the interstate and the first exits after crossing the state line are populated by large fireworks discount warehouses.

        I've heard of people who were being exceptionally irresponsible having the cops tell them to stop (and very rarely the cops take the fireworks), but no consequences beyond that.

    • Really? 'Cause where I live in the US these things are being sold at roadside stands by the thousands per hour right now.

      • Some people live in the rather limited USA, where everything is like they think it is. In my part of the USA, there will be lots of BoomenBangs from 10pm (cause, why wait?) until the wee hours (cause, hold my beer).

        We drug the dogs.

        People live lives of pain and toil. Let them party. I'd rather spend my dough on other stuff, but retirement plans vary.

    • So you live in california, new york or one of the other bastions of liberals.
      You are not the "almost anywhere" of the USA. Most people in other states can easily get and use fireworks. The main restriction is going to be not doing it in a large city and even some of those setup area where they are allowed.

    • Arizona was one of the first states to ban the use of fireworks without a permit due to brushfire concerns, but a few years ago allowed them again within a few days of new year's or Independence day, but only on private property and only if the property owner gives permission.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Environmentalists poop every party.

    • Nothing to do with "environmentalists". (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @05:42PM (#59574870)

      As always and with every groupy there is a set of extremist nutters.

      The question is, if you give them attention. And consider them in seriousness.

      There have always been nutters. They just were laughed out of society. (I do remember that. The 80s were all about that.)

      That is why the current mass-media is destroying civilization.

      I am an "environmental" person (without the -ism), by the way. Aka I don't want life to die out because of my short-term convenience. I assume that is true for you too.

    • Ignorant rednecks have destroyed our children's future. Fixed that for you.

  • thufferin' thucotath

  • ... thanks you.

  • The real reason (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shotgun ( 30919 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @12:04PM (#59573642)

    The real reason is that they're boring.

    Seriously, you spend 364 days out of the year in totally immersive video games on an 8K ultra-realistic TV where you battle warriors and wizard spewing chromatic dazzle with every swing. Then you're supposed to get excited over a little pop-pop-pop in the sky? Or a shiny ball dropping down a tall lamp post? Or, in the case of where I live, a brown 'acorn' lowered from a crane?

    Get real. My generation was the last to be inspired by fireworks, and even I have trouble getting excited about them. The last time I was impressed was when I was in Louisville, KY for the display they put on the week before the Kentucky Derby. I had a front row seat, having to pull my feet back to keep them out of the Ohio River. I must admit that I was impressed at their multi-million dollar, computer controlled, pyrotechnic display.

    But, I had a front row seat to a world class fireworks show. The average city's fireworks pales in comparison to a mediocre video game or the latest action movie. 50 years ago, they had to compete with a grainy western movie with barely realistic color and lots of radio interference. Fireworks were a step above the daily feed. Now? Meh.

    • Re:The real reason (Score:5, Insightful)

      by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @12:06PM (#59573650)
      Buying a bag of fireworks, going out to a friend's farm in the country, and setting them off is definitely not boring. Playing with REAL fire is much more fun than staring at a fucking screen.

    • Re:The real reason (Score:5, Funny)

      by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @12:16PM (#59573686) Homepage

      Kids love 'em: I won't forget the first time each of my kids saw fireworks. It continues to dazzle them years later. Adults are harder to impress.

      Seriously, you spend 364 days out of the year in totally immersive video games on an 8K ultra-realistic TV where you battle warriors and wizard spewing chromatic dazzle with every swing

      Wait.... I might have found the problem.

    • Except the little tinkly pixels are nothing compared to the real thing. The smell, the concussive effects that most high end audio systems still can't come close to reproducing, and the fact that you are celebrating a holiday vs just playing a rote video game. Videogames have lightning bolts, but I still get excited when I see lightning in SoCal.

    • I wouldn't say a TV is a replacement for fireworks, there is a communal aspect to going see fireworks with friends and family, or setting them off yourself. But fireworks are much less impressive in 2020 then they were in 1920.
      1. PTSD: We have a lot of vets who, do not take fireworks so well, as it can trigger their PTSD as it sounds much like a war zone again. Granted WWI Vets in 1920 probably had the same problems too, but they were not diagnosed as such. And just labeled as grumpy and mean people to be

      • 1. Most vets these days signed up by choice. If you chose to participate in imperialistic wars and got yourself damaged, I'm not all that sympathetic. The draft went away almost 50 years ago.

      • Seeing our Dog or Cats hide in fear makes us more focused on our pets then for the light show going on.

        That's because you've conditioned them to believe a display of fear will reward them with positive attention. They adapt just like every other intelligent animal. Otherwise it would be impossible to have hunting dogs.

    • Government outlawing things "because they are getting boring". The nanny state reaches rock bottom.

    • I bet you think rally racing (with cars) or football (soccer) are boring too.

      Because you never actually had fun doing them in person.
      Hint: If you don't get an adrenaline rush from fireworks, (or the above)... you're doing it wrong!

      Case in point: In eastern Germany, there are towns basically going to war, throwing firecrackers at each other. The kind you use like a grenade.
      It is damn fun. You will get hurt. It will be damn worth it.

      Computer games are boring as fuck! Nothing is real! No inertia pushing you in

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      Have you considered that you're just jaded with age? Modern kids who grow up with all the other things you talked about still seem to enjoy fireworks.

      Older kids still seem to enjoy setting off their own.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sad_ ( 7868 )

      nothing replaces the real thing.
      it's like seeing a monument or landscape on photo. no matter how good the photo is, it's nothing compared to the real thing.

  • Celebrate the new year of your country by blowing up a small part of i.t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      There are a few parts of my country that we might be better off blowing up. A few parts of the population as well but that raises ethical concerns :-)

  • Remark from a German (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mseeger ( 40923 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @12:32PM (#59573722)

    I loved fireworks as a child. But the use of fireworks has (over the last decades) increased to an unsustainable level. In my old neighborhood new years eve felt like a Stalingrad 2.0 with a dense black powder fog and every passing car being shelled with dozens of rockets firecrackers.

    As a sense of moderation seems out of supply, legal restrictions will and must come.

    • "As a sense of moderation seems out of supply, legal restrictions will and must come." And once again we throw laws at something that is a social problem. Why have teens started shelling cars when they didn't 10 years ago? This also has the effect of causing negative re-enforcement where people feel the need to stick it to "the man". How about tackling the root cause of these problems instead of moronic throwing laws at the symptoms?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mseeger ( 40923 )

        Remark: That are not teens doing that kind of bullshit but grown men (rarely women).

        It did not go from 0 to 100 overnight. It is something that has happened over multiple decades.

        One reason is that fireworks have become (compared to the average income) much, much cheaper. Even when you are not wealthy, you can easily afford a big stash. One thing that may help here would be a higher taxing.

        Another reason is that infractions were not sanctioned. As those were social but not legal rules, the enforcement was l

    • Why not a Dresden 2.0?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      In my old neighborhood new years eve felt like a Stalingrad 2.0 with a dense black powder fog and every passing car being shelled with dozens of rockets firecrackers.

      >

      Back in 09, to a college trip to Vienna and Salzburg over the new year, spending New Years Eve itself in Salzburg. One of my favorite memories of that night was standing along the river watching as people lined the bridges spanning the Salzach river and proceeded to bombard the other bridges with bottle rockets and roman candles. You're right that it definitely makes it seem like you are seeing a war zone full of smoke and tracers.

      Then by our meetup spot to go back to the hotel was a square where a stage

    • I remember that we had war zone like situation in Cologne, 30 years ago.
      The situation was analogous in other cities, depending on their size

      It was NORMAL to get the most powerful kind of firecracker thrown between your legs, into subway stations, subway trains, along the river (where people gather), etc.
      It was normal, to get sliggtly irritated airways, and not be able to see far, from 23:55 to 00:30.

      And it was good fun.
      You felt like a hero, getting through it.
      And to 99.99% of the people, nothing bad happene

  • There is a native American reservation near Las Vegas that sells alcohol, tobacco, and fireworks. Me, my son, and his friend stopped there and bought around $300.00 of fireworks. There was a "launch pad" in the parking lot where we lit a few items and launched a few more on our way home. Chris was kinda not responsible and launched things at his home that was in a gated community with a lot of dry brush between lots. We went to Glamis many times and Chris' mom asked me to take all of the fireworks and we h

  • They probably want to be able to hear ... um ... other kinds of explosions.

    By the way, are they still planning to set up some "go zones" that will be safe for women to celebrate in?

  • Whatever.

    We don't need fireworks as an excuse to get plastered in Seattle.

  • There are at least 10 years of recordings. People are just illegally sharing and rewatching those! Why else would they record it.

  • In other news, the germans put a ban on fun (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @03:53PM (#59574516)

    Breaking News: Seeing no reason for excitement or fun due to the ban on fireworks, the Germans have also partially banned fun and excitement. It will save people from expending endorphins and adrenaline. As one Berliner put it "In the year 2020 we don't need to be joyous or celebrate it, it's just another year. I'm going to sleep at 9PM tonight"

  • In order to make flames and "sparks" of various colours, metal salts [wikipedia.org] are added to the launching or bursting charge. These are frequently toxic - frequently containing strontium, barium, copper, rubidium, caesium and antimony. Just the sort of things you want to be releasing in clouds over your audience, and over any one living down wind.

    One good lawsuit from an asthmatic and the dangerous things will be moved out of town and out of sight.

  • There will be fireworks and gun shots most of the night tonight. Doesn't bother me.

  • The anxiety disorder generation. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @05:25PM (#59574834)

    Everything thar spells being alive, having fun in life, being exciting, or, dare I say, risky, is made illegal, or wrapped in ten foot of "safety" padding, because everyone has become mentally ill, and shits their pants at the sight of their own shadow.

    They are technically alive, but factually, have lived no life.

    I'm sorry but I prefer being irradiated and poisoned a bit by a good chemistry kit, scratching and breaking a leg by a proper sport or game, and losing a few years of life expectancy to tasty food, unhealthy oily machinist grease (not eaten but touched) and silly drugs, and live 70 years, than to exist for 140, having actually lived for the equivalent of maybe 10.

    You know, we used to have a saying: "Worth it!" (well, in my language)
    It is written on the grave stone of one of my uncles. The one who achieved the most.

    • The one who achieved the most.

      And died early.
      The reason why you don't get irradiated and poisoned by chemistry sets is because of people getting sued for creating said chemistry sets.
      If you played with one of those sets as a child and then had a child of your own who had evil mutant powers (or just plain old still born birth, or deformity, or cancer) you would probably sue as well.
      So are you living life, or are you part of the problem?
      No one is STOPPING you from eating tasty unhealthy food, they ARE s

  • I'm in Rome right now. And it's quiet. And we are less than an hour from new year. That's not normal. 20 years ago you had a continuous wall of explosions all the week before. People kept throwing explosives from their balconies, up to the point that car owners would go and park out of the city. Yeah, we are not talking about tiny firecrackers here... But no longer apparently.
  • It also hates thunderstorms.
    Fireworks can be controlled, thunderstorms not so much.
    And when I say hate I mean my dog gets turned into a quivery ball of fear that tries to escape by burrowing under, borrowing into, bowling over anything
    Or simply sitting huddled against me in a salivating ball of abject misery.
    Yay for fireworks.
    We've tried drugging the dog, pills from the vet, home recipes, etc. but they are of limited use.
    It wouldn't be so bad if fireworks only happened on x date for y duration, but t

  • Unfortunately, not soon enough to save the primates at this German zoo. So sad...

    "A fire at a zoo in western Germany in the first minutes of 2020 killed more than 30 animals, including apes, monkeys, bats and birds, authorities said. Police said the fire may have been caused by sky lanterns launched to celebrate the new year."

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