Board of Aldermen 5-26-2020 Page 23
Alderman Clemons
Ok, | guess listening to the conversation my concern is that some people have a concer that is legitimate
that we don’t want too many groups rushing to do this all the time. | don’t have a problem with fireworks in
general. | think the City of Nashua does a good job regulating them as far as the legal ones go. So ifa
group were to come forward and they were to go through this process, | have all the confidence in the world
that the fire department would put on a safe display and everything like that. | don’t have any concerns about
that and | would hope that most of my colleagues would agree. | think what the issue seems to be is the
amount of fireworks that could possibly happen and the length of time and things like that. So with all of that
said, | am going to support this Ordinance as it is written tonight so we can have BG do their graduation with
the fireworks. And | am going to hope that we don’t get a lot of applications between now and the next time
we can bring Legislation forward and then hopefully we can come to some sort of compromise. Because |
think it is a good idea to allow a limited number of groups to do these types of displays, not all the time. But |
don’t see personally anything wrong with a fireworks display here and there after a Holman Stadium
Baseball Game, stuff like that. If there’s a big celebration and there’s room to do something, | think we
should allow or try to allow groups to do this. But! certainly understand the hesitation that we don’t want to
open up the flood gates either. So for now | am going to go with supporting this and basically echo what
Alderman Lopez had said, which is let’s do this tonight and then we will get some Legislation later to tighten
it up. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Without objection, | understand that Chief Rhodes has joined us and would like to weigh in on the
conversation. Chief Rhodes?
Fire Chief Rhodes
Good evening and thank you Madam President, can you hear me? Yes, this is not something that the Fire
Department takes lightly. Our Fire Marshall has surveyed the site at Bishop Guertin. It falls within the
parameters of the State as well as City Ordinances for a safety zone. | cannot speak to the notification of
abutters, but | can speak to the safety of the site. There are very, very few sites in the City of Nashua that
have the square footage that would accommodate a Class C or Consumer, | forget the exact term
Consumer Grade or whatever it is called type fireworks. But | also believe that there are very few entities in
the City of Nashua who could meet the assurance requirements to hold an event like this. We are
comfortable with this from a public safety standpoint because we do have the area, safely discharge those.
We will, as we do with events at Holman Stadium, we will have a Fire Department presence on scene, our
Fire Marshall will be on scene and will inspect the set up. Just to reiterate, this is not something that the
average citizen could request and meet all the requirements to do this. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Thank you Chief. | have Alderman Lopez.
Alderman Lopez
No you don’t. | never said anything.
President Wilshire
So you're all set Alderman Lopez, I'll cross you off. Alderwoman Lu?
