The City of Elk Grove Joins 157 California Cities by Enlisting Their Citizens’ Help in Identifying Illegal Fireworks Violators by using a Smartphone App

ELK GROVE, CA, US, June 24, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The City of Elk Grove, Cosumnes Fire Department, Elk Grove Police Department, and TNT Fireworks, today announced that they were launching a citywide illegal fireworks enforcement campaign utilizing a dual-platform smartphone mobile app that will allow its residents to take pictures of the sale and/or use of illegal fireworks and email these photos, along with the GPS coordinates of the alleged illegal activity and a text and/or audio message, to the Elk Grove Police Department so that it can immediately investigate, confiscate, cite and/or arrest those responsible for this alleged illegal activity.

This unique smartphone app, appropriately named, “Nail’em”, which was developed by TNT Fireworks, places the power of illegal fireworks enforcement in the palm of any Californian’s hands. It will allow them to report the possession, sale and/or use of illegal fireworks in their community along with photos and GPS locations. The citizen’s complaint will automatically be routed to the correct law enforcement and fire personnel. The reporting individual can also opt-in to receive notifications and be kept informed regarding when and how their complaint was acted upon. This Nail’em app is being provided to communities throughout California and their residents, free of charge, as a public service of TNT Fireworks.

“So many California communities are experiencing a rampant use of illegal fireworks, especially in cities where no fireworks are allowed,” declared Dennis C. Revell, spokesperson for TNT Fireworks. “Because until recently, little or nothing was being done to stop the interdiction of these illegal, dangerous items into California, local jurisdictions have become not only the ‘first line of defense’, but the ‘only line of defense’ against illegal fireworks!”

Communities throughout the state are confronted with the scope of an illegal fireworks problem that requires a level of enforcement personnel that their budgets cannot support. For many years now, the Office of the State Fire Marshal has said, “Dangerous, illegal fireworks constitute a growing, serious threat to your family’s safety this 4th of July. Truckloads of large aerial shells, skyrockets, firecrackers, and other illegal fireworks are being smuggled into California. Even though these illegal fireworks are prohibited in every community throughout our great State, they are responsible for almost all of the fireworks-caused fires and injuries each year. Remember, if it goes up in the air or explodes, it is dangerous and illegal.”

“In its continuing efforts to protect Californians and their communities from illegal fireworks, TNT Fireworks is providing this vehicle through which fire and law enforcement agencies can solicit and gain the public’s help,” stated Revell. “No matter how skilled a community’s police and fire department is; they will benefit from their citizens’ help in identifying illegal fireworks violators. The Nail ’em app allows their citizens to assist them by being their eyes and ears out there in the community so that, when it comes to illegal fireworks violators, we can say, ‘Use Illegal Fireworks? Smile! You’ve been Nailed’!”

“The reality is that most of us have our smartphone within arms’ reach all day, every day”, commented Elk Grove Police Chief Timothy Albright. “We are strongly urging residents of Elk Grove to use the Nail’em app to document and report illegal fireworks sales and use in our community.”

“We have begun to field special dedicated teams to patrol, identify sellers and users of illegal fireworks, and respond to Nail’em reports.” Albright continued. “We will be working with neighborhood groups and homeowner associations to target habitual violators. We will also be utilizing the city’s Fireworks Social Host provisions in our ordinance that permits us to cite the owner or tenant of a premise where the illegal fireworks were launched or used.”

The City is using yard signs strategically positioned throughout the community to promote the use of the Nail’em app (click here to see yard sign). It also is using social media to advise residents of the Fireworks Social Host Ordinance and the $500 fine they could be subject to if they permit the use or discharge of any illegal fireworks on their property (click here to see social media advisory). Funding for the special dedicated enforcement teams is being provided by area nonprofits who sell state-approved fireworks as their primary fundraiser each year and TNT Fireworks and Phantom Fireworks.

Elk Grove’s Fireworks Social Host provision requires only that the property where the illegal fireworks are launched from be identified and not the person actually setting off the fireworks. Not only is that significantly easier to verify, but because the prosecution is through the administrative fine process and not the court system, the citations are resolved fairly quickly with the city prevailing in the vast majority of the cases. “The goal is to make the financial hit hard enough to motivate people to obey the law and stop using illegal fireworks,” concluded Revell.

It should be noted that in many participating jurisdictions, police officers found the Nail’em app particularly useful for their officers to use in order to be able to cite individuals where it was too dangerous for a single officer to intervene. The Nail’em app allowed the officers to take the necessary photographic documentary evidence, capture the GPS coordinates of the activity, file a report, and subsequently issue a citation, without putting themselves at risk.

The Nail ’em app is available today through the App Store and Google Play and has been developed for both the iPhone and Android platforms. There are 158 jurisdictions throughout California that now receive varying levels of Nail’em illegal fireworks reports.

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NOTE: All materials, including videos and PSAs (as well as all safety videos and PSAs produced and distributed over the last 30 years) and information and tutorials on “Nail’em”, the illegal fireworks smartphone reporting app, are available online at… www.ca-fireworks.com

Dennis C. Revell
Revell Communications
+1 916-443-3816
email us here