Surfside Beach only allows fireworks on July 4. Residents want make sure it stays that way.

Surfside Beach is considering whether fireworks should be able to crack through the sky every night — a notion many year-round residents say is too intrusive on their way of life.

“Wait until your next door neighbor decides it’s Fourth of July every night single night,” resident Harry Coleman said Thursday during a Town Council workshop where the issue was discussed for more than an hour.

Right now, fireworks can only be discharged in the coastal town of 4,000 on Independence Day, though a proposal that won early support from town leaders in March would loosen that regulation considerably by letting them be used any day of the year until 11 p.m. on private property that’s more than 500 feet away from parks and the town’s fishing pier.

A 2011 state Attorney General opinion said local governments can only impose civil penalties for violators of fireworks bans, and offenders in Surfside Beach can be fined up to $500 for ignoring the ban.

Police Chief Michael Hoffman said although the sale, possession or exchange of fireworks in the town is illegal on day except July 4, “we have fireworks all around us.”

“Visitors have come into town for generations and just start fireworks on the beach. The town expends a tremendous amount money each year to have law enforcement officers on the beach every night,” he said.

Fireworks-related injuries are also on the rise. A recent Consumer Product Safety Commission study found a 50% year-over-year increase in the number of deaths from the products between 2019 and 2020.

Donna Daniell, a resident who rents her beach house out for most of the year, said noise from fireworks has driven some of her tenants out of town.

“It’s not fair to the people who come and enjoy Surfside Beach,” she said. “As a community, let’s find a way to just have the Fourth of July for fireworks.”

The council meets again April 12, when a vote on whether to expand fireworks use is expected. Councilman William Kinken made it clear how he’ll be voting.

“The most disturbing thing I’ve heard is we have people who don’t come back because of the noise,” he said Thursday. “We are dependent on those people coming. To me, I want to keep the ban.”