Spectators enjoy the Redondo Beach fireworks show on July 4, 2016. (Photo by Gil Castro for The Beach Reporter)
Things were different in 1939 than they are now, sure, but the Torrance Herald’s promotional gift used to entice newspaper delivery employees to sign up new subscribers seems more than a little irresponsible: Give them a box of free fireworks for each new annual subscription obtained!
Torrance Herald, June 29, 1939, Page 2-B. (Credit: Torrance Historical Newspaper and Directories Archive database, Torrance Public Library)
Fireworks classified as “safe and sane” then were legal in Torrance. The city would ban their sale in 1949, and un-ban them a year later, under the proviso that, once purchased, they only be set off in Torrance Park.
Safe and sane sales remained legal until the City Council again banned the practice in 1982. But I’m guessing that the 1939 offer to hand them out to any teenager who signed up a new subscriber probably was neither the safest or sanest of promotional offers.
A dozen years earlier, the Golden State Fireworks Co. plant in Redondo Beach was leveled by a massive explosion. Luckily no one was killed in the blast on Feb. 8, 1940. The cause was never found, but residents understandably were skittish about fireworks.
Ada Joan Hume, 20, helps unleash firecrackers at American Legion’s annual Fourth of July show at Coliseum in this photo dated June 25, 1959. (Credit: Los Angeles Public Library photo collection)
The largest Fourth of July fireworks show in the region during this era was the one sponsored by the American Legion, and held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Thousands attended the annual display there, which began in 1933, and took its cue from the existing show at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl.
More localized fireworks shows began to appear in the South Bay and Harbor Area in the years following the end of World War II.
Palos Verdes News ad, June 16, 1949, Page 2. Click to enlarge. (Credit: Palos Verdes News)
Los Angeles County began sponsoring pyrotechnics at Alondra Park, which opened officially in 1946, and held the annual shows there for decades. Skyrockets were launched from the island in the park’s man-made lake.
On the Palos Verdes Peninsula, the Portuguese Bend Club held its first fireworks show, “Skyrockets Over the Sea,” in 1949. They were astounded when an estimated 25,000 people showed up to watch.
The Club’s annual show became even more popular during the 1950s. Unfortunately, the 1956 Portuguese Bend landslide put an end to the practice, and, ultimately, an end to the club itself. (More on that in a future post.)
In its place, the Palos Verdes Kiwanis Club began staging annual fireworks displays from the grounds of the Palos Verdes Swim Club (now known as the Palos Verdes Beach Club) .in Palos Verdes Estates.
Kiwanis Club members promote the upcoming fireworks show in 1963. Palos Verdes News, June 27, 1963, Page 1. (Credit: Palos Verdes News)
Redondo Beach set off fireworks from boats anchored offshore during its Neptune Days annual Fourth of July festival that began in 1954. The tradition has continued, with the displays currently set off every Fourth from an offshore barge.
El Segundo banned the sale of fireworks in 1949, and a few years later instituted its own public fireworks show at Recreation Park, which opened in 1958. The annual incendiary celebration is still held there.
Fireworks also were launched from Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro during the 1950s, a practice which continues every Fourth.
Spectators view the fireworks at Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro on July 4, 2014. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
By the mid-1960s, almost every municipality in the South Bay and Harbor Area had its own annual fireworks display. In addition to those already mentioned, shows were held in Inglewood, Gardena, Westchester, Hawthorne and Gardena.
Many of them fell by the wayside over the years due to budget constraints.
A major new show began in 1982. Torrance had promised residents that it would make up for that year’s new ban on the sale of fireworks in the city by instituting a Fourth of July fireworks extravaganza. It would be held at Wilson Park, which had opened in 1979.
The show drew increasingly large crowds every year. Tightening budgets threatened the event during the early 2000s. Finally, lack of civic funds caused the ending of the annual tradition after the 2010 show.
Families gather at Wilson Park for the 30th July 4th celebration in Torrance in 2010, the last year it was held at the park. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
Torrance remained dark on the Fourth until 2016, when Mayor Pat Furey reinstated the annual fireworks display. The event now is held at the Toyota Sports Complex, which opened in 2014 at 555 Maple Ave., just north of the city’s civic center. (The 2018 event will be held there on July 4.)
Manhattan Beach, conflicted over rowdiness at its annual fireworks show, moved it from Fourth of July to mid-December in 1989 at the urgings of resident Pete Moffett, and it has become a holiday tradition over the past three decades.
Carson’s StubHub Center began its annual fireworks display shortly after it opened (as the Home Depot Center) in 2003, scheduling the event to follow a home Los Angeles Galaxy MLS game.
Another new show began from a barge docked offshore near Torrance’s Rat Beach in 2001. Torrance resident Jackie Briles started the tradition in 2001, underwriting it in honor of her late husband, Paul, owner of PB Fasteners in Gardena. Thousands of spectators viewed it annually the beach and the surrounding cliffs and hillsides.
Spectators watch the Briles family’s privately funded fireworks shows from Paseo Del Mar in Palos Verdes Estates on July 4, 2010. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
Briles herself died in 2016 at 95 years old, and that year’s show looked it would be the last one. But residents missed the show enough for PVE resident Rick Bender to form Palos Verdes Fireworks, a nonprofit fundraising group, to raise funds to finance the show.
The group fell short of its goal in 2017, but contributions from Mike Russell, owner of Pedone’s Pizza in Riviera Village, have assured that show will go on this Fourth of July.
In addition to Torrance, other cities have banned the sales of safe and sane fireworks within their borders over the years.
Fireworks stand operating on Hawthorne Boulevard in Lawndale on July 3, 2012. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
Lomita once allowed them, but its residents voted to ban them from the city in a 1986 referendum election.
Gardena legalized their sale in a 2002 vote, but its city council voted to re-ban them in February of this year.
Safe and sane fireworks are now sold in just four local cities: Carson, Hawthorne, Lawndale and Inglewood.
And, as always, all other non-safe and sane types of fireworks, including bottle rockets, Roman candles, firecrackers and all similar types of explosive devices, are strictly illegal everywhere in Los Angeles County.
Redondo Beach police officer Cliff Dean dusts for fingerprints at the scene of a bust for illegal fireworks in a homowner’s garage in North Redondo Beach in July 2006. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
Sources:
Daily Breeze files.
Los Angeles Times files.
Palos Verdes News files.
Torrance Herald files.
The last Torrance Beach barge show sponsored by the Briles family, 2016. Video by George Kiriyama:
