Crime & Traffic

The following question was originally submitted to John Roska, a lawyer Someone who represents clients in courts or who gives legal advice and writer for the weekly column "The Law Q&A" in the Champaign News Gazette. The article has been updated to include changes in the law and additional information.

Question

What kinds of fireworks are legal in Illinois? Is it legal to bring fireworks into Illinois from Indiana?

Answer

There are no kinds of fireworks that are legal in Illinois. The only "fireworks" that are legal aren't fireworks, and even those can be outlawed locally.

Fireworks are regulated on three different levels: federal, state, and local. What is legal depends on where you are.

Regulations generally aim to protect the public health and safety. Since they are so dangerous, fireworks are heavily regulated.

Federal law classifies most fireworks as “banned hazardous substances.” Federal regulations specifically ban M-80s and cherry bombs, along with any firecrackers that make a sound “produced by a charge of more than 2 grains of pyrotechnic composition.” They’re banned because “the public health and safety can be served only by keeping such articles out of interstate commerce.”

So, federal law bans a big chunk of all fireworks. States are then free to ban what’s left.

The Pyrotechnic Use Act ("PUA") in Illinois bans the sale, possession, and use of all “consumer fireworks.” That’s the stuff you can buy legally in some states, like firecrackers, bottle rockets, and roman candles. Violating the PUA can result in up to 1 year in prison and a $2500 fine.

The PUA specifically says that certain things are not consumer fireworks and are therefore legal. The list of what’s legal includes:

• Sparklers;
• Some small-cap guns;
• Snake or glow worm pellets;
• Smoke devices;
• Trick noisemakers (known as party A person or business involved in a court case in a role like plaintiff, petitioner, defendant, respondent, or intervenor. poppers);
• Booby traps;
• Snappers;
• Trick matches;
• Cigarette loads; and
• Auto burglar alarms.

Careful with those smoke devices, though. Federal law prohibits cherry bombs.

Finally, local ordinances can add a third level of regulation on top of the federal and Illinois laws. The small number of fireworks that are still legal after the federal and state bans can be banned too.

For example, Urbana’s website claims that “any items which must be ignited by a match are prohibited in the city limits.” But its actual ordinance A law or rule made by a local government like a town or city allows sparklers on property that isn’t “owned, controlled, or managed by the City of Urbana, the Urbana Park District, or the Urbana School District No. 116.”

Since it’s illegal to possess fireworks in Illinois, what may be legal in Indiana becomes illegal when you enter Illinois. And on top of the state penalties for using or having fireworks in Illinois, it’s a federal offense to cross state lines with them. That could get you a 1-year prison sentence, in the unlikely event that the U.S. Attorney chose to prosecute.

The really big stuff like cherry bombs, M-80s, and “silver salutes” have been illegal in all 50 states for decades. Those that still get sold come from outlaws, who don’t worry about quality control. That’s one reason they’ve been policed by the ATF (officially, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) since the 1970s.

Editor's note: Sparklers are legal at the state level. But they are illegal in Chicago and many other cities in Illinois.