At a sparsely attended town meeting held during Christmas week at the Buxton Town Hall, nine biased and misinformed voters banned the sale and use of all fireworks in the town.

In a display of a tremendous lack of knowledge of the new state law, Selectman Cliff Emery led the public to believe that if this ordinance was not passed on December 28, 2011 that the town would be unable to do anything about this issue in the future.

Mr. Emery and Selectman Jean Harmon further influenced the vote by misstating the legality of different types of fireworks. In particular, Mrs. Harmon stated, "As far as this ordinance is concerned, this ordinance deals with the word 'consumer fireworks' as defined by the code that the state fire marshal has defined. It doesn't include, and it is written here in the ordinance, it doesn't include missile type rockets, again as defined by the state fire marshal, helicopters and aerial spinners, again as defined by the state fire marshal, and skyrockets and bottle rockets.

Typically the average person who has fireworks in their possession are going to have firecrackers, they're going to have sparklers and they may have some of these which is not part of the ordinance, these, again, are not defined as consumer fireworks. Consumer fireworks is the bigger stuff.

If you do happen to purchase some bottle rockets, that's ok... You could have them."

Unfortunately, these statements are the exact opposite of the wording of the state law. The key is the apparently overlooked word "not" - as in the listed fireworks are not of the type that are to be made legal. Bottle rockets are not and will not be legal. Following the trail of definitions in the law requires no small effort, however our Selectmen failed to even conduct the slightest effort to determine that only the smallest of firecrackers and a very limited set of tube launched fireworks are going to be legal.

The vote was apparently an important political point for some self-congratulating members of the audience. Cindy Bowie had an axe to grind and directly accused Governor LePage of not caring about towns and people. "I don't think Governor LePage cares about his grandson being able to shoot off fireworks or whatever - he wants money for the State." This sentiment was reiterated by others including the dreadfully biased and completely misinformed Harry Weymouth who insisted on enforcing his authority over others. "From the public safety perspective, there is no way we can possibly condone the sale and use of fireworks in the Town of Buxton." "This is kind of a jam job by the Governor to get the taxes that are being paid on fireworks out of state to bring it into the state to increase the state's revenue."

After the chorus of nanny state supporters was complete, the vote passed by a show of hands with only 9 people voting for the ban.

A video of the meeting is available at http://vimeo.com/channels/buxton#34380525 where you can see for yourself how a few misguided and misinformed citizens can control your life and enforce their will using fines, an armed police force, and a complicit Board of Selectmen.