Talking to a Fireworks Store Owner on the Only Day it’s Legal to Sell Them in Australia

Today, the first of July, is Territory Day. That's when the Northern Territory celebrates achieving self-government in 1978 by making it legal to sell, buy, and use fireworks for 24-hours. It's a perfect display of everything that's amazing and insane about the Territory.

It's also the only day of the year that The Territory Day Fireworks Store is open. For the other 8736 hours the company's employees return to their regular lives and jobs. But today they give themselves to their first love—helping people blow things up without a licence.

The company's director Mark Killip loves fireworks. He loves them so much that when he's not in the store—which is most of the time—he works in blast engineering, mining, and as a fireworks designer and consultant. He was nice enough to chat to us on his single busiest day, and tell us how a store survives when it's only legal for 24 hours a year.

VICE: Hey Mark, so you're probably pretty busy in the shop right now.
Mark: Very, very, very busy. Looking out the window now, the queue is going back about 30 meters in our pick-up area, I've got about 50 people in the store, and a queue out the door and around the corner. I can't see the end of it. It varies from year to year, but we'll probably serve 2000 people today.

How do you get fireworks if they're mostly illegal?
They're imported from China specifically for Territory Day.

What happens to the fireworks for the rest of the year?
The vast majority get sold, some leftovers get sold to commercial operators. The rest are put in storage in Alice Springs through the wet season; then we retest them next year, make sure they're good, and sell them all again!

You obviously love fireworks, does it kill you to only set them off once a year?
Oh I have a license, I can set them off whenever I like. If I'm doing testing I go to a remote area, I just need to notify Worksafe and the fire brigade.

Do you ever get some mates together on a Saturday night and to have a fireworks party?
Occasionally. We did two Saturday nights ago. We went out to show my staff. Most of the time we're testing during the day to make sure they're safe, but you can't see the effects. So we went out to test them so we can explain to customers what they do and what they look like.

Do you get a lot of emails through the year with people trying to coerce you into selling to them?
Yeah, pretty much. We don't really bother checking our email from the 1st of July to May. Everyone during that time just wants to do something illegal.

I still don't really get how self-governing and fireworks fit together?
Well Territorians are very, very, loyal to the Territory. There is a different vibe here, it's very different to the rest of Australia. They love doing things that are different and fun. They really don't like the nanny-state style of politics you get in places with larger populations. It's just one of the things they do to express their freedom—once a year we go set off a bunch of fireworks.

I've been involved in fireworks all around the world for the last 14 years and I've never seen anything like the Northern Territory's passion for fireworks. Everyone loves them.

Doesn't a whole state setting off explosives with no experience cause a lot of issues?
Not as much as you'd expect. These are all designed and tested to be safe from three meters back. When we test them, we set them off without securing them and if they fall over they fail. If you secure the item the odds of something going wrong are very low. It can happen, because they're handmade, but it's very low.

Last year in the Territory we had 21 hospitalised injuries, most of them were from sparklers they sell in supermarkets.

But most Territorians are pretty apathetic about burns. If they do get hurt they say, "well I was being an idiot. I let the firework off and it fell over and it hurt me because I was being stupid and I deserved it."

But do you have systems in place to keep them safe?
If you follow the instructions you're very safe. We have a lot of engagement on Facebook and if someone mentions an issue I'll be straight on there asking them what was the item? What happened? And what was the item number? If I'm aware of a problem we'll get rid of it for next year. Or redesign it, or do some additional tests to make sure the problem has been fixed.

The last thing we want is people being hurt because that sort of thing can lead to a ban.

Surely not everyone is in love with fireworks, you must face opposition.
Obviously there are some. But the percentage of the population that is anti, is relatively low. There was a petition a few years ago that got 600 signatures. To compare we did a quick petition last year of people who were pro fireworks and we got 7500 signatures in 12 hours.

One last question before you go back to work, what's your favourite firework?
Oooo… favourite this year is probably still the Alice Arsenal. It's a fan shaped multi-shot that has 25 shots and it goes back and forth like a zig-zag pattern, it has a nice big wide effect with a glittering bouquet. It looks really good.

Follow Wendy on Twitter: @wendywends

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