Last April, scores of anxious residents packed the council chamber in Alhambra, a city of about 80,000 people east of downtown Los Angeles. Word got out beforehand that an item deep in the meeting agenda could eventually result in a fireworks ban. No vote was planned, just a request by one council member to — maybe, possibly — reconsider the city’s permissive fireworks ordinance at a future meeting.

But the people who spoke that night found any whiff of a ban intolerable. Their message was clear: Outlaw these state-sanctioned “safe and sane” fireworks (which aren’t shot up and don’t explode), and you put charities, youth programs and other worthy causes in peril.

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