While summer 2020 saw enough fireworks complaints in Utica the city's Common Council added a specific entry to the city code section on prohibited noises, Utica police Sgt. Michael Curley said this year there have been fewer reports of illegal, aerial fireworks (not the “sparkling devices” you can legally purchase at your local big box store) as Fourth of July draws near.

“Obviously during COVID was a very high time [for reports of illegal fireworks], with nothing else to do,” he said, referring to the closure of most businesses and canceled events during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Rome police Lt. Sharon Rood also said there’s been little concern with illegal fireworks compared to previous years, though she said there have been more noise complaints since sparkling devices became legal in Oneida County.

“We’ve had a couple complaints,” she said. “But it’s nothing alarming.”

New York only allows the sale of fireworks known as sparkling devices, which do not launch into the air. These are currently legal in all New York counties except for Albany, Bronx, Columbia, Kings, Nassau, the City of New York, Queens, Richmond, Orange (prohibited in the cities of Middletown and Newburgh only), Schenectady, Suffolk and Westchester.

Curley also does not anticipate a level of gun violence like the spike in the summer of 2021, which included two people killed in shootings over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

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The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services' Gun Involved Violence Elimination initiative shows a decrease in gun violence from January to May of this year in Utica, as well as a 24% decrease in shooting incidents involving injury from 2020 to 2021.

“As a whole this year, it’s been a precipitous drop both in homicides and in bullet-to-body [non-fatal] shootings,” Curley said.

There will, however, be additional patrols over the holiday weekend, he said.

“There’s always a concern the calls for service will go up,” Rood said of anytime large gatherings may occur, particularly over holiday weekends. She noted there has been a 40% increase in shots-fired calls over the last five years in Rome, though calls dropped from 2021 to 2022.

Rome police recently formed a Street Crime Unit in response to a spike in calls for service. Data from Rome police shows a 24% increase in calls for service from January through March of this year, with a 42% increase in violent crime.

The New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services’ Office of Fire Prevention and Control suggests the following tips for using legal fireworks over the holiday weekend: