With Florida hospitals on guard to approach or even surpass capacity amid the post-Thanksgiving COVID-19 escalation, holiday fireworks accident victims could find themselves spending the remainder of their celebrations ruefully thinking “Looks like I picked the wrong time to have a backyard fireworks display!”

Indeed, consumer-grade fireworks sales are booming in Florida after a highly publicized change in state law this year rendered our unique wink-and-a-nod purchasing ritual obsolete as of April 8. With the enactment of SB 140 as Section 791.08, F.S., the new law eliminated the much-heckled “bird scaring” waiver heretofore required of low-grade pyrotechnics purchasers in the Sunshine State.