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STERLING HEIGHTS — City officials would like nothing better than to lower the boom on residential fireworks but state law obstructs their efforts to address an issue that residents continually complain about.
Although it’s nowhere near the Fourth of July — the traditional timeframe for skybound blasts and thundering bangs — city leaders continue looking for ways to restrict individuals from executing their own explosive displays in neighborhoods and subdivisions.
According to city officials, state law allows up to a dozen days where communities are unable to regulate consumer fireworks. Most are during the week leading up to the July Fourth holiday, but also include the weekends before Memorial Day and Labor Day, as well as New Year’s Eve.
Local officials say amateur fireworks use has prompted more than 1,200 calls for police and Fire Department response since 2020 and raises concerns of noise, debris, fire hazards and property damage, among other issues.
In highly developed residential communities like Sterling Heights, nonprofessional fireworks use creates risks and nuisances that make Michigan’s one-size-fits-all law a burden and a danger, according to Sterling Heights city officials.
“Sterling Heights has predominantly 60-foot-wide residential lots with close setbacks, vehicles and overhead utilities. Aerial fireworks require clearance distances that far exceed typical lot dimensions,” Sterling Heights Assistant City Manager Dale Dwojakowski said at a City Council strategic planning meeting in late January. “Embers, misfires, debris across property lines, landing on roofs, creating hazards and quality of life issues for all of our residents.”
Sterling Heights officials have repeatedly called on state lawmakers to make “common sense changes” since the fireworks law took effect in 2012, but other than a 2018 amendment that reduced unrestricted fireworks use from 30 days to 12 days, the pleas have gone unanswered.
The city’s most recent resolution, from 2023, noted how “erosion of local control and home rule authority” ties the hands of municipal officials, causing harm to residents and “preempted any reasonable regulations that could protect neighborhoods, minimize litter and blight, and ensure the public’s health, safety, and welfare.”
The resolution called the law — officially known as the Fireworks Safety Act — “an ill-conceived and an indefensible piece of legislation that needs to be repealed.”
Now, rather than passing another resolution — which frustrated Sterling Heights Councilwoman Maria Schmidt called “not worth the paper they’re written on” — the city has reached out to legislators with a plan “that maintains celebration options while improving safety and enforceability.”
Dwojakowski said the city’s proposal is built around three pillars: return, reduce and regulate. The city’s request breaks down as follows:
Return local authority on aerial consumer fireworks — Authorize local units of government to prohibit aerial consumer fireworks year-round, including during currently protected “must-allow” days.
Reduce the “must-allow” days statewide — Reduce state-mandated fireworks use days to a shorter, predictable window such as July 3-4 (11 a.m.–11 p.m.) and Dec 31 (11 a.m.–12:30 a.m.) so public safety can plan and residents have clearer expectations.
Regulate with statewide safety setbacks — Adopt statewide setback requirements that reflect safe-clearance concepts and reduce foreseeable risk in dense neighborhoods (e.g., a 150-foot discharge radius for aerial consumer fireworks and 50 feet for ground devices), while allowing locals to adopt stricter standards.
“Return, reduce and regulate must be part of common sense fireworks reform at the state level,” Dwojakowski said. “The one-size-fits-all approach that the state has taken does not work in Sterling Heights and so many other communities.”
Dwojakowski said consumer fireworks may be appropriate in more rural areas of Michigan where there is more open land and larger parcels, but they make no sense in densely populated communities.
“Aerial fireworks are unsafe in our city,” he said. “By having shorter windows of use, public safety will be better prepared to respond to emergencies.”
City Council members expressed support for lobbying lawmakers to make changes to the fireworks law.
“I think it’s something that we need to move forward on,” Councilwoman Barbara Ziarko said. “Just give us local control. Is that so much to ask?
… Just give us the authority to make our own rules.”
Councilman Michael Radtke said Sterling Heights residents who complain about the noise and nuisance of fireworks don’t realize that local officials lack the power to restrict their use.
“The city’s law is as stringent as possible under state law,” he said. “So anything we can do to make this law have a less negative effect on the residents
I am in favor of.”
Schmidt said city officials have to “keep fighting the fight.”
“That’s all we can do,” she said. “As far as our state legislators that are attached to Sterling Heights, we absolutely have been in contact with all of them over the years. … Make no mistake about that.
The council has been fighting this legislation since it went into play.”
Although unpopular in Sterling Heights and other municipalities, there is a financial incentive to maintain the law as is. According to state budget documents, Michigan realized $3.8 million in revenue from fireworks fees and taxes in the 2025 fiscal year. Trimming the number of unrestricted fireworks days would impact sales.
Mayor Michael Taylor said state lawmakers have been generally dismissive regarding changes to the fireworks law.
“It’s one of those issues where you talk to people at the state and they say, ‘OK, all right, thanks. We don’t care,’” Taylor said. “At least they were honest about it.”
Taylor said he believes generating money for state coffers is the Legislature’s objective, but scoffed at the reasoning.
“It’s a drop in the bucket,” he said. “How much money could fireworks taxes be raising? Not a lot.”
