After major events like baseball or basketball games or a city sanctioned/sponsored fireworks display, the project beginning almost immediately afterward is litter clean-up. In Vancouver and surrounding areas, we are treated to several days of neighborhood fireworks, many of them quite sizable. Also sizable and widespread is the quantity of unsightly fireworks litter strewn throughout neighborhood streets and property. This material then rests where it fell, making the area look trashy for a long time afterward.
I want to see clean-up crews scouring through every neighborhood, starting July 5, cleaning up the aftermath of the city-sanctioned mega-party. Stadium and park owners and managers do not allow their properties to remain in an unsightly, untidy state, and neither do I want my neighborhood to be permitted to stay likewise.
The question, of course, is how to pay for the task. The just and sensible solution is to fund it in a similar way that crews are paid to clean up the Mariners’ stadium or Fort Vancouver after large events. Ticket prices at those venues include the cost of post-event clean-up. I propose a surcharge on each firework sale to cover the cost of hiring crews to conduct post-event clean-up duty.
David McBride
Vancouver