My first post in this forum. Sorry to write English, I can read dutch as it´s similar to german, but writing is a problem. I hope it´s OK anyways.
As last year in cooperation with Zena we started to bring items to the NL market, ofcourse we made a plan of the assortment which we want to realise for the NL market for the future. And this plan includes many items, which now suddently should get banned.
So I am pretty shocked since I got to know about this change, and especially got to know that your so called "Belangenvereniging Pyrotechniek Nederland" is even suggesting this ban. In my opinion they are acting incredibly stupid, to put it in nice words.
But I also think it´s a pity that except this organisation of the bigger companies, there seem to be no other parts of the industry in NL who have any voice / any form of organisation?
Sadly I am not from Holland, I don´t speak dutch, we are not even importer / distributing company and I can do pretty less in this situation.
But as a european importer, let me at least write my point of view, maybe it will at least help somehow to get some brains moving a little.
First of all, I can not understand the completely wrong judgements the BPN makes in this situation. They seem like they lost their head, run around in panic and desperately try to appease some ominous creature who is mad at them. But let me break down these wrong judgements one by one:
1.) It seems they never asked themselves who is leading the discussion against fireworks, and why? Ofcourse without this understanding, they also can not find an effective strategy to counter it. According to my opinion, there are 3 major groups, which have to be treated accordingly to their motivation:
a) Private people who are concerned about fireworks
For sure there are people who are seriously concerned about the safety, the animals, etc etc, but this is the smallest part according to my personal experience, and they are no big problem, because we can always have a dialogue with them and find a pragmatic compromise (which we should also do).
For this type of people it makes sense to explain the situation in a calm way and point out that not the fireworks is the problem, but the misuse, and that the legal fireworks is already safe. The big problem is, that this group is affected by the public discussion, so every participation in the discussion should only focus on these people, and ignore all others.
b) Do-Gooders, Self-appointed Sheriffs
Sadly this group is quite big nowadays. Let me give one example to explain this type of people: if someone would seriously be concerned about the amount of people which get hurt every year by fireworks, they would be open to discuss on a reasonable level, how this number could be decreased, without having to restrict out freedom. But per my experience, those people who want to see fireworks banned, usually just want to see fireworks illegal, and all other things they mention are just in order to justify this.
There have always been people who can´t bare to see other people happy, and want to make others as miserable as they are themselves; or who feel like they are something better and they have the right to police others; or who just can´t accept that other people enjoy activities, which they might consider stupid by themselves etc.
These kind of self appointed sheriffs for ethics and correct behaviours have always existed, but everyone always ignored them and saw them as the idiots they are.
But now, these people use the internet and social media to organise themselves and be heard by fellow idiots in the whole country, and also they use the "green movement" to justify their bullshit - but in reality they don´t really care about this environmental shit, they just found it as a tool to claim their high morality and tell others what to do.
As this type of people has no interest in improving anything, but only has their own little agenda in mind, it is no use to talk to them on any logical level. They can only be ignored, and any argument with them can only have the function to prove to bystanders how selfish and ignorant they are.
So it is also no use to make concessions to these people, as they don´t care about anything except a total ban.
c) Politicians and the Media
This is the most important part, because although just a small group, they are shifting many peoples opinion and have the highest range. According to my opinion, this is the group which should be focused on, and first their motivation should be understood.
I make it short: There are tons of real problems, which they want to hide, so they just blow up something unimportant (in this case fireworks) to look bad, and distract from the real issues.
Basically, every end of the old year and begin of the new year, several weeks the news can be filled with the bad bad fireworks, and they can distract from all the shit which is really happening and does really matter. They don´t really have any interest in fireworks, they just use it as a tool for publicity and distraction.
Given this fact, they also have no real interest in banning fireworks, otherwise they could not use it for distraction year after year anymore, so actually they might even have an interest to keep fireworks, if they are clever enough.
So a proper strategy of these geniuses at BPN should focus on giving these politicians something, which is actually nothing: Let them look in the media like they take concerns seriously and do something, while actually they did nothing.
For example, the industry could offer to make instructions and leaflets at sales points for the safe use of fireworks, and develop a plan against illegal fireworks together with the authorities. It´s nonsense without any effect, but the politicians could present some concession, and claim they are the ones who achieved this.
But what does your BPN do? They offer real concessions - forgetting that 1 year later, the whole thing starts again, and they have to offer something again. The problem is, soon there is not much left anymore to offer..
2.) Their second big mistake is, that they believe, that financially it will be no problem for them. The turnover is only 15%, so they don´t care to much.
Also I can tell you, that with the blackpowder crackers (Shising crackers) which are sold in NL, the importers are usually losing money, so maybe they are even happy to get rid of it?
Same for singleshots, almost no profit or even 0 profit with these "bullpacks" for low prices, so why not get rid of it?
There are a few reasons they don´t see:
- Young people usually start with these items. If they never start, and never get excited about it in the young age, they will never buy the big stuff later.
- People not only go into a shop to buy singleshots, or to buy a cake. Sales are connected. Maybe if there are no singleshots, for many reasons some customers won´t come to the shops anymore at all?
- People will go to buy in Germany or Belgium for the singleshots etc, and then will also all other stuff buy there combined with it directly
3.) They believe it will help against the illegal market, because when there will be a banger in the future, police can know immediately that it is illegal. This is ridiculous, because the police can´t do shit on new years eve anyways. It will only grow the illegal market, because many people, who bought these items in NL before, will buy it in germany, Belgium or on the black market now.
4.) They think that accidents will go down, as many might happen with singleshots and rockets. But also this is stupid, because if black market goes up, the number of serious accidents will also go up. NL fireworks is already extremely safe.
So here we come to my conclusion what will happen:
Because things are moving already, it´s quite likely that the ban on more types of fireworks will come now. If this happens, more and more people will go to Germany and Belgium, but also the black market will get up again.
It´s kind of funny. The black market for fireworks in Holland was always the strongest in whole europe, NL people were always crazy about the big stuff from poland, I can tell this from experience
So the government was actually doing something smart: Instead of Shells, they gave people the chance to get F3 singleshots; instead of celebration crackers with flashpowder, they made F3 blackpowder rolls legal; and instead of professional cakes, the consumer cakes got so good, that actually a NL consumer cake from a good brand is much better right now than a typical shitty polish 100sh cake, and only idiots buy them now, who think they have something which is good because it´s illegal - while in reality it´s crap. They gave mich more safe, legal alternatives for almost everything.
When I started to read in this forum many many years ago, a huge part of the discussion here was about explod 50g, supervlinder, shells and all sorts of illegal stuff. But since it became possible to buy all kinds of good - while safe - fireworks in NL, people realised that all of this trouble is not necessary, and there was a transformation away from the illegal things in many places. With less illegal fireworks, ofcourse there were also less accidents. I believe that in the last 10 years, the development in NL for safety aspects was actually quite good, because in my opinion, most serious accidents come from illegal items - if the victims admit it later or not doesn´t really matter.
So publicly, the BPN should focus on communicating this message and the positive development, and warn of the consequences to turn it back - but yeah, they decide to act stupid instead...
So now, all of this for safety aspects positive progess might get lost. So if really the safety is the reason for all this now, in my opinion, the whole issue will backfire pretty sure.
The NL importers will suffer economically, and at the same time there will be more accidents, and more illegal fireworks, and more bad press - that´s my prediction.
So basically, above was my analasys of the situation, and some suggestion what should be done instead. But on top of this, ofcourse I also have my personal opinion towards what is happening right now:
Once people talk about tradition, they should have a look at new years eve 20,30,40 years ago - there were almost no cakes at all, mostly bangers, rockets, fountains.. So basically, those items which formed the tradition, are now for a large part to be banned. Those things, which for decades were no problem, suddently are supposed to be one? I think it is ridiculous. For me, a rocket or a banger is 100 times more important for new years eve than any cake could ever be. By giving up this, it´s basically giving up the tradition already.
In my opnion, your "fireworks association" sadly is to stupid to analyse the situation properly, doesn´t seem to care about fireworks and fireworks tradition at all, and just put their own short-sighted financial interests first, not understanding, that their actions are not only damaging everyone of us fireworks enthusiasts, but also themselves.
When I got the news that the importers themselves suggested to ban these items, I immediately thought they are crazy, and I still think they are. It is the most stupid thing to give up something to begin with. It´s even more ridiculous: I heard that the BPN offered by themselves to stop to sell singleshots, rockets and bangers this year already, even without any change in law (although I want to point out that I can not confirm this 100% yet).
So even we are not handling any business in NL by ourselfs at this point, our goods are at least on the NL market, and I can tell you the consequences for us:
- We will continue to produce all items as we intended to, including rockets etc. If Lesli doesn´t want to distribute it, then I don´t care, I will find a way to sell it by ourselves, fuck that BPN decision, we are not in this clown association, so for us it doesn´t matter anyways
- If the government already tries to ban it this year, I promise to ask my lawyer to check the possibility to sue them in a european court, because we as a company ofcourse have long term production planning, already have stock etc, and per my understanding it should not be possible for the government to change things from one moment to another and give us 0 chance to sell of stock items
- If the ban really goes through next year per law, we might drop out of the NL market again, because as I said, even though also we make 70-80% of turnover/profit with cakes, for me this is no proper fireworks anymore, and I better focus my energy elsewhere.
- I will personally do my best to improve the availability of our items at the German border and the Belgium border, to make sure everyone will still be able to get nice bangers, rockets, singleshots etc in the future if he wants, and to do my part to help to prove how completely useless this ban is in reality.
In germany we have a nive word, "Ziviler Ungehorsam", it means Civil disobedience. Why did you ever have F3 Singleshots in NL, which we don´t have in DE? In my opinion, because people ignored the regulation, shot tons of shells and thus forced the government to find ways to solve the issue.
Another example: End of last year in Aachen in germany, the city banned on one place for the first time the shooting of fireworks, and send some public officials to control it and write fines.
Well, those public officials were just blocked by groups of people, while others just continued shooting, and in the end the control people had to flee the scene.
People accept way to much stupid regulations in my opinion - we shall see if they accept this one
OK then, sorry for the long message, but this topic really bothers me, so I wanted to write my perspective to this issue.
dát is pas actie, die we hier van BPN niet hebben gezien