Annexation-area skies were bright with colorful explosions, loud with laughter and thick with the smell of igniting gunpowder during Fourth of July celebrations 10 days ago. Next year the skies will be silent.

“Next year (the annexation area) will have the same regulations that we currently have in Kirkland, which means they can’t do the safe and sane fireworks,” Assistant City Manager Marilynne Beard told Kirkland City Councilmember Dave Asher during the July 6 study session, when asked to clarify the new county law.

The King County Council recently voted to ban all fireworks from the Kirkland annexation area, bridging a gap in the laws of the city and county. The issue was first approached one year ago by the Kirkland Reporter in a story where elected officials, including the State Attorney General’s office, had no answer for the conflicting statutes.

Kirkland prohibits the use or sale of fireworks within city limits, while the county allows both. By Washington State law, residents and vendors have to be given a one year notice period for fireworks bans. With the annexation of the Kingsgate, Finn Hill and North Juanita neighborhoods going into effect June 1, 2011, a gap of one year was left despite the neighborhoods’ absorption of all city laws.

The City of Kirkland requested that the King County Council take action to bridge the gap and Councilmember Jane Hague introduced legislation on June 10 that would ban the discharge and sales of fireworks in the Kirkland Annexation Area. The county voted to accept the ordinance on June 28, making the ban effective on June 28, 2011.

Another issue with the ban is that Juanita High School uses the sale of fireworks as a fundraiser each year to offset the cost of some events such as prom.

Beard told the Kirkland City Council that Juanita High School plans to move their sales out into adjacent areas in unincorporated King County where fireworks are still legal in the years to come.

The switch from county to city policing will also have an impact on illegal fireworks that are policed by a King County Sheriff’s Department stretched thin on the Fourth of July.

“Illegal fireworks? They are illegal anyway and people are going to do them,” Beard. “But what we do have there is a heightened police presence next year.”

The city will take over policing duties of the annexation neighborhoods on the effective date.