Will Coastal Commission Snuff Out July Fourth Fireworks?

Independence Day celebrations are a summer highlight in the picturesque town of Gualala, California, on the Mendocino County coast. But this year, the California Coastal Commission is poised to play "grinch" to the community's splashiest July Fourth event—the nighttime program where fireworks are shot off over the ocean.
The Commission's staff wants the show not to go on because staffers believe the pyrotechnics unnerve birds. The issue could come to a head at the panel's meeting in Santa Rosa on Wednesday, June 11.
Now, the Commission is supposed to be a land-use agency, so how would it justify a prohibition on lighting up the sky on Independence Day? Commission officials have concocted a curious rationale: they're proposing to brand the fireworks display as an illegal "development."
If Commission members go along with the staff's recommendation and shut down the Gualala show, fireworks displays from one end of the California coast to the other will end.

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