Which fireworks are legal in Puerto Rico and when it becomes a felony

It is the law that makes nearly all fireworks illegal in Puerto Rico and leaves out a short, very specific list. What surprises people most is the penalty ladder: the difference between misdemeanor and felony is not what you did, but how many units are seized from you.

The prohibition reaches any person: possessing, using, manufacturing or having manufactured, importing, selling or holding for sale, offering, delivering to any person or disposing of any pyrotechnic device or product. The exceptions are those the law lists, and they are about products, not persons.

• That the product fall within the Act’s exceptions: fireworks approved by the authorities for public display, or ground-based, non-aerial, non-explosive products within the gram limits the Act sets.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: The rule is prohibition, not permission

   Worth starting there because it changes the question. The law does not say what is allowed: it says that “no one may possess, use, manufacture or have manufactured, import, sell or hold for sale, offer, deliver to any person or dispose of any pyrotechnic device or product.” Possessing is already on the list, alongside using and selling. What is allowed is only what the law excepts afterwards.

2. 2

   Step 2: What the law names as prohibited

   The enumeration is the text’s own and is long on purpose: rockets, firecrackers, and Roman candles “and any others analogous, whether aerial or explosive such as, but not limited to, mortars, batteries, firecracker strings, mats, big bomb, saturn missile, cohetitos, flash cracker, artillery shell, pulling firecrackers, thunder bomb firecracker, whistling moon traveler, among others.” The phrase “but not limited to” is what closes the door on new names.

3. 3

   Step 3: What does fall outside the law

   Two big groups. First, “fireworks approved by the authorities for public display”: authorised shows. Second, “ground-based, non-aerial non-explosive products containing up to one hundred (100) grams of mixture such as sparklers (wood stick or wire sparklers).” The three words to check on the packaging are the same three every time: ground-based, non-aerial, non-explosive.

4. 4

   Step 4: The gram limits, as the law writes them

   They are specific and worth quoting. Also outside are “ground base sparklers that are neither explosive nor aerial, which in some cases whistle or crackle, with a composition of up to 75 grams per tube or in multiple tubes not exceeding 500 grams of pyrotechnic mixture, such as garbanzos and estrellitas”; “party poppers whose packaging holds up to 25/100 of a gram of mixture”; “roll caps, usually used with toy revolvers and pistols”; and “smoke balls.”

5. 5

   Step 5: Ten units: the line between misdemeanor and felony

   This is the figure most worth knowing before storing anything at home. “Any person violating this Act, in cases where a person is intervened with and ten (10) units or fewer of pyrotechnic material are seized, faces the penalties of a misdemeanor with imprisonment for a term not exceeding six (6) months, a fine not exceeding five thousand ($5,000) dollars, or both at the court’s discretion. Where more than ten (10) units of pyrotechnic material are seized from an individual or individuals, it is a felony with a fixed term of three (3) years, a fine not exceeding ten thousand ($10,000) dollars, or both at the court’s discretion.” The felony term is fixed: three years.

6. 6

   Step 6: What a “unit” is under the law

   The law defines it so the count is not left to anyone’s judgment: “For purposes of this Section, ‘unit’ shall be the pyrotechnic device or material composed of several integrated articles of the same class in a single retail package.” That is, the retail package counts as one unit, even if it holds several articles inside.

7. 7

   Step 7: This law does not replace the explosives one

   The law itself clarifies: “It is hereby stated that this Act in no way repeals, alters, modifies, annuls or sets aside Act No. 67 of May 13, 1934, known as the ‘Puerto Rico Explosives Act.’” OGP’s compilation annotates in brackets that the 1934 Act was repealed and replaced by Act 134-1969. We reproduce that annotation as what it is — a compiler’s note — and we read neither.

There is no citizen procedure in this law: it is a prohibition with exceptions and penalties. Fireworks for public display are those “approved by the authorities,” and the law does not name in its text which agency approves them or by what procedure, so we do not publish that. If your matter is a police complaint or a copy of the police report, those have their own guides.

• Believing the law only bans selling: possessing and using are on the same list.
• Storing “a few boxes”: more than ten units turns it into a felony, with a fixed three-year term.
• Counting articles instead of packages: the unit is the retail package.
• Assuming any sparkler complies: there are gram limits and they must be ground-based, non-aerial and non-explosive.
• Thinking small means legal: the law excepts named products, not sizes.
• Confusing this law with the explosives one: the law itself says it does not repeal or modify it.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Negociado del Cuerpo de Bomberos de Puerto Rico

  Bomberos

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov