McLennan County fireworks sales dip with weekday 4th of July
With the 4th of July landing on a weekday, Central Texas firework stores aren’t getting the sales they got in years past.
WACO, Texas (KWTX) - McLennan County fireworks stores are seeing a decrease in sales due to the 4th of July falling on a Thursday this year.
If American Independence Day falls on the weekend, fireworks stores in McLennan County see a rise in sales. This year, the owner and operator of Stars and Stripes Fireworks, Dan Fitzgerald, said sales have been slower than in past years.
“Typically when the 4th of July falls on a weekday versus a weekend sales are a little bit lower and that’s because people may have to work the following day, things of that nature,” Fitzgerald said. “And it does shift sales quite a bit.”
But he’s relieved that, as of right now, there is no active burn ban in McLennan County like the one from 2022.
“We’ve seen some pretty drastic ones,” Fitzgerald said. “Like the all-out ban of the sale of fireworks a couple of years ago as well as in 2011 we also saw an all-out ban of the sales of fireworks and that really hurts the industry. Especially independent operators like us.”
Burn bans are implemented by the county commissioners court. They are typically put in place during periods of drought. Sometimes they can leave fireworks stores scrambling to make ends meet.
“The livelihood of the store sometimes hangs in the balance of whether or not you can manage inventory and manage cash flow from year to year,” Fitzgerald said.” If there’s an all-out ban on fireworks and you don’t have the cash to pay your creditors you’ve gotta find some way to deal with that.”
With the high amount of rain in Central Texas this year, fireworks store manager Terresa Hale is confident a ban won’t be implemented this year.
“Sales should be wide open this year,” Mr. W Fireworks manager Hale said. “You can by pretty much anything there’s no ban on. And as far as we know there is no intent of putting a ban on this year.”
The McLennan County Commissioners Court could still institute a burn ban before the holiday during its meetings on July 1 and 2.
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