Saturday, December 22, 2007 Firecracker vending zone designated in Talisay City
WITH only less than a week before Christmas Eve, the Talisay City Government is keeping the buying public and vendors safe by designating a special firecracker zone.
Chief Insp. Felipe Canillas, Talisay City fire chief, said all pyrotechnics and firecrackers can only be bought at an exclusive open space in Barangay Lagtang.
The area is near the unfinished market-cum-terminal project and more than a kilometer away from Barangay Tabunok, the city’s main business district.
Apart from the old public market and a satellite market, Tabunok is teemed with bakeshops, pharmacies, beauty saloons and various stores selling household items, appliances, home decors and hardware products.
Canillas said the designation of firecrackers’ special vending area away from Tabunok is to ensure the safety of the buying public from accidental blasts, firecracker-related blazes and injuries.
“Also we don’t want a repeat of what had happened at a store in Ormoc City last year,” he added.
Canillas was referring to the tragic fire that swept through a department store last Christmas in Ormoc City and killed more than 20 shoppers.
Most of the fatalities were trapped in a restroom where they took refuge after finding that the store’s backdoor was padlocked, blocking their exit route.
Authorities blamed the fire on illegally sold firecrackers that reportedly ignited the blaze near the entrance door of the Unitop General Merchandising Store.
Unitop also has a store branch in Tabunok but this has not been selling pyrotechnics following the blaze in Ormoc City, Canillas said.
He said they already met firecrackers’ vendors in a conference at City Hall attended by officials of the Firearms, Explosives, Security Agencies and Guards Supervision Section (Fesagss) 7 last Dec.14.
He said the vendors were told to secure first clearances from Fesagss, the local police and fire offices before they could sell their wares at the designated area in Lagtang.
The vendors must display their pyrotechnics on a table with six meters distance from each other and limit their wares to 25 kilograms only, Canillas added. (GC)
