Cracking down on illegal fireworks during 4th of July holiday celebrations is proving difficult for San Jose despite several years of concerted effort.

Though it received more than 1,100 online reports of illicit fireworks activity between June 1 and July 8 this year, the city’s Code Enforcement Division issued just four citations and 88 warnings. The rest of the reports, according to a recent memo from the fire department, did not provide enough information for the department to issue citations.

Likewise, police issued one citation compared to nine last year. And neither the fire nor the police departments confiscated any fireworks this year compared to the thousands of pounds they took in last year.

By contrast, San Bruno police announced late on July 4 this year that officers had arrested 25 people and confiscated more than 300 pounds of illegal fireworks during the holiday.

The San Jose figures mark a departure from last year, when the city was forced to rescind all of the 45 fines it had issued amid complaints from residents who said they’d been wrongly cited. Last year, the city issued 161 warnings, nearly double the number it handed out this year. During the 4th of July holiday this year, officials seem to have been more cautious.

“An extremely high percentage of submitted reports contain insufficient information or were incomplete,” the memo reads. “It is unclear as to the cause of 92 percent of the submitted reports being non-actionable. Staff will determine a method to follow-up with some of the reporting parties to find out if it is a lack of having the required information or if the online tool is confusing or cumbersome.”

Despite the promise to look into the issue further, some elected officials aren’t thrilled.

“I can’t say I’m happy about the results,” said District 10 Councilman Johnny Khamis, who has been vocal about pushing the city to do more to reduce the use of illegal fireworks.

But he also acknowledges there’s no easy fix. To warrant a citation, officials need proof that someone actually used illegal fireworks. The online reporting tool asks for names and addresses and photo or video evidence. The potential awkwardness of filming a neighbor could reasonably deter some residents.

“It is true that would provide an awkward situation,” Khamis said, “however, we use that tool in more than one way.”

If residents don’t provide enough information to warrant a citation or even warning, the city can still analyze complaints to look for hot spots where they can deploy more patrols next year, he said.

Fire Captain Mitch Matlow echoed Khamis.

“We are paying attention to where complaints come from,” Matlow said.

But even when the fire and police departments gets callers who are able to provide enough information, the city doesn’t always have enough resources to do anything.

According to the memo, of the 596 calls for service to the police department related to fireworks, which boiled down to 265 calls when cancelled and duplicate calls were removed, police did not have enough resources to respond to 127 of the calls. On and around the 4th of July, police are already spread thin, deployed to patrol sanctioned events and control traffic.

“Deployment of resources to fireworks-related incidents continues to be a challenge for the Police Department given the competing and more urgent Priority 1 and Priority 2 Calls for Service,” the memo acknowledges.

This year, some of those calls came in reporting an illegal fireworks display in Alviso. News reports and social media showed several police officers there. However, with hundreds of people partying and many of them consuming alcohol at the event, it wasn’t practical for just a few officers to start issuing citations, said Captain Michael Kihmm. Instead, officers were present in case of a major incident requiring first responders, Kihmm said.

That frustrates residents like Tina Morrill, who belongs to a group called Stop Illegal Fireworks.

“I think that the ball was really dropped when it comes to enforcement,” Morrill said, adding that officers could use drones to patrol areas and suggesting that some of the sanctioned events use private security to free up more officers to patrol the city’s neighborhoods.

Moving forward, the city plans to build up its outreach to residents and increase education. This year, the city sent mailers to residents in known hot spots asking for reports of illegal fireworks activity and an initial review indicates that recipients who received a postcard were almost twice as likely to report a violation as those who did not get a postcard.

The fire department will also work on educating people about the right way to take a photo of the scofflaws.

“A lot of online reports showed really nice photographs of fireworks up in the air,” said Matlow, and didn’t show pictures of the people actually setting them off. “Unfortunately, the vast majority of the reporting public aren’t evidence technicians, they’re not attorneys, not police detectives, so they don’t know what constitutes good evidence.”

The fire department is set to find out next month whether the city won a federal grant to help fund education and awareness programs through 2020.

Anecdotal reports suggest illegal fireworks activity in San Jose this year was lower in the days leading up to the holiday than in previous years.

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Napa police find missing, at-risk adult That rings true for Khamis, whose district hosted a sanctioned fireworks display at Almaden Lake Park. Constituents told him the display was good enough that they didn’t feel the need to set off their own illegal fireworks, he said.

“There’s no perfect system for enforcement,” Khamis said, adding that he thinks the carrot-and-stick approach — sanctioned displays and enforcement — is starting to bear fruit. “We just have to give it a few more years for this method to disseminate.”