This July 4th is going to be a little less grand for shoppers at Utah’s Smith’s Food & Drug Stores, as the Kroger division has elected not to sell aerial fireworks in response to the state’s drought conditions.
According to a report in The Salt Lake Tribune, Smith’s instead will stock only “safe and
sane” fireworks that remain on the ground, such as sparklers and fountains.
“We’ve been paying attention to the high fire danger, the lack of snow pack and all the
other conditions,” Marsha Gilford, a Smith’s spokeswoman, told the newspaper. “We
don’t promote this as a do-all-end-all. We know there’s some controversy about the
safety of the aerials.”
According to the paper, despite the restrictions, Smith’s will continue to allow
independent vendors to sell aerial fireworks from tents in its store parking lots.
