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Local, Legal Fireworks On Sale This Week Only
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Opening night customers flock to a fireworks booth operated by Community Praise Tabernacle on Sunday evening. The lighted booth is located in the O’Brien’s Market parking lot and June 28 was the first day they could be sold in Riverbank. Ric McGinnis/The News
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Fireworks sales began on Sunday in Riverbank, with community organizations allowed to earn money by providing legal Fourth of July fun. At the same time, city authorities have been clamping down in their reaction to illegal fireworks being set off in the city limits. This year, they say there will be no warnings, with citations issued beginning with $1000 fines. Ric McGinnis/The News

Last Sunday – June 28 – was the magic day, when selling ‘Safe and Sane’ legal fireworks became available in the City of Action.

Riverbank shoppers became able to purchase them from various temporary booths that have popped up around town recently. The sales locations feature such brands as TNT, Phantom and Black Cat fireworks.

Although the available booth locations around town are plentiful, there are fewer than in years past. An example would be the RHS Band Boosters, who were not at their regular spot on Sunday, in the parking lot between Starbucks and A&W/KFC on Patterson Road.

Another is the Bruins Boosters of Riverbank High School. Traditionally, a Fourth of July fireworks booth is just one of the many fundraisers they work on through the year, raising money to give as scholarships to graduating RHS athletes.

Boosters President Kimi Jennings said that, this year, they’re not manning their regular booth, at the corner of Patterson Road and Jackson Street, in the parking lot of Galaxy Theatres.

“We were told at one point that there was a possibility of fireworks being banned so we decided to pass this year,” Jennings said.

There is, however, another group that has taken over that location, so the fun is still available for purchase there.

A booth is usually available with fireworks for sale in the parking lot at the Sno-White Drive-in on Atchison and Fifth streets, manned by one of the local Boy Scout troops. It also is not set up this year.

The quick survey of some of the regular locations around town, just after sunset on Sunday, also revealed that not all booths are equipped with electricity, forcing some to shut down when darkness falls, while others, with lights on, can function after sunset.

The Community Praise Tabernacle Church is selling from its booth in the parking lot of O’Brien’s Market, on Patterson Road, with the aid of lights at night.

On that first day of fireworks sales, some booths reported busy sales, on a day that, in the past, has been noted as a ‘slow start’ to the selling season.