This past week, Q-line asked:
The Santa Monica Pier celebrated its centennial this week with a fireworks display that some studies indicate may be harmful to the water quality of Santa Monica Bay. Do you think that the fireworks will hurt the bay or do you believe that it is harmless fun?
Here are your responses:
“It has already been proven that the fireworks will be harmful to the ocean water and the wildlife therein. It will also create more garbage in the ocean water to wash up on shore. I’d like to wrap the Santa Monica City Council and all the perpetrators of this mess in green ribbon and dump them in the middle of it. Of course the bums will all gather and enjoy it rather than just staring into space or squatting in our parks watching the grass grow.”
“I want to thank somebody for the wonderful fireworks.”
“Our silly council didn’t want a dog beach area because of kooks afraid of puppy poop contaminating the ocean. Now it’s a few firecrackers upsetting them. This is a stupid argument since one whale can poop a ton a day. What about the thousands of children peeing while playing in the water? Most ships and boats still dump trash and waste. If there’s a worry we can use our life guard boats and volunteer boats to scoop up the floating fireworks with nets.”
“Our City Council squanders millions on silly parties and then cries ‘We’re broke’ and raises city fees on everything.”
“They shouldn’t do fireworks for the Pier. They should only do them on the Fourth of July. Then again, Santa Monica doesn’t do fireworks on the Fourth of July, they do them when it’s convenient.”
“It’s the 100th year anniversary. Why can’t Santa Monica celebrate its Pier without anyone being critical as to whether or not it will harm the water quality of the ocean? That’s just moronic and stupid. What can happen? It’s obviously going to be extinguished in the ocean. People should have a good time. The only thing that’s really bad is the price gouging for the parking for all of the citizens of Los Angeles who want to come watch this. It’s unfair. It’s a multicultural area. Everyone and their families show up and they want to enjoy this. I don’t understand City Hall being all retarded as far as making the parking prices higher for people to enjoy it.”
“I think it’s wonderful that we have the fireworks, and I agree that it doesn’t do any harm. It will be absolutely lovely and magical.”
“I do not believe that the fireworks will harm the bay, because the bay is so bad as it is they can’t do any harm, especially if it’s a one-time thing. I do believe though whoever scheduled the fireworks is a knucklehead because it’s a school night. A lot of people who would want to go are not going to be able to go. Next time something like this happens, if it’s around Labor Day, it should be the Sunday night before Labor Day. This way everybody can go and they won’t have to rush home. Who knows how many accidents might happen tonight with people rushing home to go back to school tomorrow.”
The fireworks are harmless fun. Still, the hordes of people they will attract are not always intent on harmless fun. The Santa Monica Police Department will earn their keep on that day. Also, I trust my sailing friends will keep their sailing ships a safe distance from the pier as they view and enjoy the fireworks show from the sea.”
“I would imagine that the fireworks will hurt the bay to a certain extent. It’s also troubling that the city would spend $120,000 on this fireworks display. You would think that Joan Baez, Robert Redford and a 100-foot birthday cake would be enough to draw people to this wonderful event. Perhaps they could have invested a much smaller amount of money into enivronmentally-friendly fireworks that are only very brief at the end of the program. Perhaps a one-minute fireworks display that spelled out the words “One Hundred” in the air. Then they could have written in the press release that since Santa Monica is an environmentally friendly city, they were capping the program with environmentally friendly fireworks. And then they could have distributed the rest of the money to our schools.”
“Santa Monica should not be wasting their money on a fireworks show that will be harmful, not only to the water quality, but certainly to the air quality. A few years ago, the city claimed it was too expensive to collect data to address air pollution from jets coming and going from Santa Monica Airport. Now this gross expenditure of $120,000 for an environmentally harmful display of sparkly and noisy fireworks is a slap in the face to those who regularly have jet fumes in their living rooms. Something is rotten in the city of Santa Monica.”
“I certainly do not view the fireworks as harmless fun. Thanks to the Daily Press, I’ve only today learned that the cost for this will be about $120,000. Absolutely outrageous in this economic climate to be wasting money so frivolously on what is essentially a less than 30-minute spectacular that will end up floating in the bay. Whoever OK’d this should be fired, and the city should stop wasting money so frivolously.”
