8:00am Saturday 3rd November 2007
By Emily Walker
ADVERTISER readers want to see fireworks banned from public sale.
Two homes in Park South had rockets fired through their front doors last Sunday morning.
As reported in Monday's paper a firework was pushed through the letterbox of a house in Denholm Road, Park South, leaving the female occupant and four children severely shaken.
After reading the story another Park South resident, of Norcliffe Road, just a couple of streets away, said his home had also been the target of firework-wielding yobs at 12.30pm.
The elderly man, who feared for his safety said: "There was a bang and lots of smoke. We were terrified.
"A rocket had been put through the door.
"We thought the noise was coming from outside to start with, but then my wife shouted that someone had put a firework through the door. I opened the window and yelled out, but they had gone.
"It was quite frightening and it caused quite a bit of damage."
Hundreds of Adver readers voted in our poll on whether fireworks should be banned from general sale and 83 per cent thought they should only be sold for professional shows.
Swindon police have vowed to be on the look out for pyrotechnic trouble this weekend. People have been reminded it is illegal to set off fireworks in public or to sell fireworks to anyone under 18.
Police Community Support Officers have been given powers to hand out £80 on the spot fines to anyone acting dangerously with fireworks.
And our readers have been posting their views on the firework laws on our website.
Paul said: "If everyone emailed their MP asking for a ban on the public sale of fireworks then we might not be reading articles such as this."
Al Smith said: "The vast majority of people who buy fireworks don't do this sort of stuff. The solution to this is enforce the laws that already exist.
"Bonfire night is the only festival we have that is truly British and it's already being pushed out by the supermarkets and their Americanised Halloween."
CK said: "There will always be idiots throwing fireworks around. It happened 40 years ago. We lived in a tenement and it was guaranteed some moron would throw a firework in the hallway.
"Of course, back then if the local bobby caught you letting off fireworks illegally, you got a clip round the ear or a boot up the backside and twice as much when you went home.
"Perhaps the sale of fireworks should only be one week before Guy Fawkes."
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