SLO County city changing fireworks law after fines balloon to $128,000
On the Fourth of July, the Grover Beach Police Department deployed a fleet of drones to catch residents lighting off illegal fireworks into the night sky.
Police ended up issuing a dozen citations over the course of the holiday weekend. The 12 residents cited for fireworks violations were the first to be fined based on the city’s new “social hosts” ordinance.
The ordinance — adopted by City Council in May 2025 — fines property owners, renters or people who hold gatherings with illegal fireworks use on their properties or nearby sidewalks or streets. It does not apply to legal “safe and sane” fireworks.
But now the city has backtracked and amended the local law after unpaid fines grew to over $125,000.
The ordinance charged violators a $1,000 fine per illegal firework set off, meaning a person with 10 illegal fireworks citations would be fined $10,000, plus accumulating daily fines for “each and every day a violation exists,” according to the ordinance’s text.
By December 2025, some individual fees had grown to $30,000, the staff report said.
Out of 12 citations handed out in 2025, only three were fully paid on time, the report said. Another five made partial payments or entered into payment plans with the city, while one was dismissed following an appeal. Three people who were cited never responded.
As of Monday, Grover Beach was still owed $128,000 in unpaid fireworks fines.
Grover Beach City Council amends illegal fireworks ordinance
By mid-April, city staff alerted councilmembers to enforcement issues with the new ordinance, including the “rapid escalation of fines due to daily accumulated fines for nonpayment,” as well as challenges actually collecting the fines.
Staff recommended changing the ordinance to create “more efficient and equitable enforcement” in the future, the staff report said. They proposed removing the provision that each violation incurred an extra $1,000 fine, instead promoting a tired fine structure:
- $1,000 fine for one to 10 fireworks violations
- $3,000 for 11 to 20 fireworks violations
- $5,000 for more than 20 fireworks violations
The fee structure would be retroactively applied to those cited last year and one person would be reimbursed about $1,200, according to assistant city manager Kristin Eriksson.
The proposal also nixed accumulating daily fines for nonpayment, but some late fees would still be applied if payments were not made promptly.
The amendment would also allow unpaid fines to be referred to third-party collections agencies, instead of putting a lien on someone’s property, which was previously the city’s only enforcement mechanism, Eriksson said.
Grover Beach councilmembers unanimously voted in favor of adopting the amended ordinance at Monday’s meeting.
Eriksson said once changes go into effect, it will not only be easier to enforce the ordinance, but also there will be significantly less administrative burden on staff.
