For the past year, Horry County Council member Bill Howard has attempted to convince the rest of county council to pass a county fireworks ordinance in order to silence some constituents in Howard’s district.
Howard’s latest attempt to move proposed County Ordinance 155-2021 forward was at the Horry County Public Safety Committee meeting of August 8, 2022.
Howard has been aided in this effort by Horry County Attorney Arrigo Carotti who, according to his own statements, has been the principal drafter of the county ordinance.
The difficulty is that the proposed county fireworks ordinance violates the provisions enumerated in state law for banning fireworks from an area.
State law is quite specific. Section 23-35-175 (c), states “an owner, a lessee or managing authority of real property may establish a Fireworks Prohibited Zone by (1) filing a Discharge of Fireworks Prohibited Agreement with the law enforcement agency having jurisdiction over the subject property.”
In other words, the owner etc. of a property may designate that property as a Fireworks Prohibited Zone. But not someone else’s property!
What Howard, with Carotti’s help, is trying to do is find a way for council to establish blanket “No fireworks areas” in neighborhoods where the owners of all the properties in the area have not agreed to the ban.

click on headline above to read more