Scott Stewart
September 29, 2006
A local resident protested a recent UNO football fireworks display by holding a sign for the rush-hour commuters on Dodge Street to see on Monday afternoon.
Bonny Price, a long-time resident of the Happy Hollow neighborhood, held a sign saying “U.N.O. Happy Hollow is not Lebanon: No fireworks” in front of the Milo Bail Student Center and Eppley Administration Building.
“I don’t understand why they’re doing it, and I don’t want them to do it,” she said. “They’re too close to the neighborhood. They’re not good neighbors.”
The Happy Hollow neighborhood borders UNO to the east. It is the neighborhood nearest to Al Caniglia Field, where fireworks lit the sky on Saturday night following Maverick football’s 59-28 victory over Augustana.
Price said she thought a bomb had hit her house or that lightning had struck nearby when she first heard the fireworks going off.
“For a fleeting moment, I thought maybe we were being attacked. I really, honestly did. I am not being exasperated,” she said. “It sounded like an impact grenade.”
The fireworks were a particular inconvenience to Price because of her nine-year-old dog, who “just started to be deathly afraid of thunder, lighting and fireworks” this last year. Her dog gets so bad, she said, that she drugs her during the Fourth of July firework season.
“It may have been ten minutes for UNO, but it was ten hours for me, because that was about how long she just panicked, shivered, frothed at the mouth,” Price said. “I hope to God that they don’t do it again.”
The fireworks display was put on as a publicity stunt by the UNO Athletics Department to encourage attendance at the football game. Fireworks are a common marketing strategy for sporting events, such as the Omaha Royals’ “Fireworks Fridays” events.
UNO advertised the event on its Web site, gomavs.unomaha.edu, as “Football and Fireworks Saturday.”
“Athletics did it,” said David Herbster, director of UNO Athletics. “The idea behind it is to increase attendance … everyone likes fireworks.”
Herbster went on to say the department received “so many positive comments” but only a few complaints about the noise. Most of the complaints focused on the use of percussion fireworks, which are louder than fireworks commonly available in the summer.
“The biggest concern is it was so loud,” he said. “[The problem was] we got late notice of the final approval.”
Because of the late approval, neighborhood awareness was minimal, although the presidents of the local neighborhood associations were notified, Herbster said. Dundee-Memorial Park Association President Jack Kubat was out of town until Saturday.
Despite the handful of complaints, Herbster said he expects to have fireworks again next year, although he hopes to provide better notification to the surrounding community.
UNOgateway.com: UNO’s neighbors upset over fireworks display
