Manteca leaders will look at stepping up illegal fireworks enforcement efforts as well as giving nonprofits a break from draconian property rentals.

The City Council when they meet Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the Civic Center will ponder a staff report that recommends:

*Tripling the deployment of drones to snare illegal fireworks users.

*Pursue criminal citations for those launching illegal fireworks in the public right-of-way.

*Increase the first offense fine by a third to $1,000, the same fine already in place for each subsequent violation.

*Recording and assessing all citations as a lien against property.

*Allow using city parcels as booth rental sites so non-profits can avoid private property rental fees that are approaching $10,000 in some cases.

*Assess an illegal fireworks enforcement fee based on a  percentage of each vendors’ profits.

*Establish an illegal fireworks trade-in program.

*Rollout a fireworks safety show in schools.

*Step up the use of social media platforms and municipal utility bill mailings to educate the public about the consequences of using illegal fireworks.

If the majority of staff suggestions are implemented, it will mark the first major overhaul of how Manteca deals with the sale of legal fireworks since a previous council made them legal in 2005.

And the recommendations that would fine tune Manteca’s property host enforcement strategy would — based on success employed this year — likely lead to more citations for illegal fireworks with a  higher cost attached and the ability to secure the fines by placing liens against property.

The push for staff to devise ways to enhance the ability of non-profits to make more money from the week-long sale of legal fireworks was first pushed by Councilman Charlie Halford.

Halford noted a number of the 14 non-profits that secure the right to sell fireworks for a week in Manteca via a lottery end up paying exorbitant rental fees for commercial property.

In some cases they’re approaching $10,000.

Given that the original intent of allowing legal fireworks sales was to helping non-profits bolster their efforts to serve the community, the rest of the council agreed with Halford that ways should be devised to reduce overhead for non-profits.

At the same time, they wanted taxpayers to be made whole by the Pandora’s Box of a surge in illegal fireworks that legal fireworks sales opened.

Allowing non-profits to use city property without paying rent would eliminate a major overhead cost for organizations. It would also allow the city to have tighter control on insurance requirement compliance and such.

The percentage fee on profits on legal fireworks sales to cover city costs for illegal fireworks enforcement would likely be more than offset by free rent.

Based on a survey of the 14 organizations that were issued permits for this year’s sales, the 12 that were returned them showed total sales for 2023 were $656,000.

The net overall profit for organizations after all expense deductions was $310,000 or less than 50 percent.

The most successful booth had $130,248 in total sales with $110,171 in net profits.

There was one vendor that netted only $300 on $25,000 in sales due to a theft.

That aside, the lowest performing sellers based on reports were two organizations that each netted $12,000.

They had different overall sales — one was $50,000 and the other was $42,000. The biggest difference between the two was a huge difference in property rentals cost based on their location.

The city issued 30 citations this past year.

Even with the lower $750 fine now in place, the overall financial hits for violators was in excess of $30,000 or $1,000 or so per offender.

That is because state law allows the city to recoup the cost in manpower it takes to enforce and assess fines for illegal fireworks use.

Police made 99 education contacts — basically those they suspected of launching illegal fireworks but officers were unable to get physical evidence with drone or ground video.

There were 363 reports of illegal fireworks sent to the police through the Nail’ Em app along with 36 calls regarding illegal fireworks.

They also conducted cases of illegal fireworks.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com