With the Fourth of July holiday ahead, various efforts are being taken to control Hawaiʻi's illegal fireworks issue.
The state's Illegal Fireworks Task Force, under the new Department of Law Enforcement, has seized about 1,000 pounds of illegal fireworks since January.
"Between all of the different enforcement tasks and investigative tasks and then the administrative tasks, we have a number of law enforcement officers that are just really taking a full-time strong focus at dealing with this problem," said state Department of Law Enforcement Deputy Director Jared Redulla.
The task force is also working on an investigation to stop the illegal importation of fireworks.
"What we're working on right now is to deny the illicit black market the goods that they're trying to smuggle, and to that end, we are putting a lot of pressure and a lot of surveillance on our ports of entry and in both our United States and private mail distribution systems. Traditionally, that's how fireworks get into our state," Redulla said.
This interview aired on The Conversation on July 3, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
