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VANCOUVER — “BANG! Get your Halloween firecrackers at the Jong Yuen Hing Importing and Exporting Co.,” says a Vancouver Sun newspaper ad from 1928.

“Fireworks, sparklers, firecrackers, roman candles, etc. Prices only: 10c and 5c,” reads a Millar & Coe Ltd. ad in The Province newspaper from 1922.

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This West Coast city has had a longstanding tradition, not typically seen in other parts of Canada, of setting off fireworks and firecrackers at Halloween — a ritual that has also been associated at times with “mayhem, hooliganism, riots, severe burns and the occasional death,” historical researcher Christine Hagemoen recently wrote in an online column.

But now that tradition could be extinguished after a city councillor put forward a motion proposing to outlaw the sale of consumer fireworks, which is currently allowed in the city in the days leading up to Oct. 31.

We don’t want to be po-faced enders of fun

As with other jurisdictions where fireworks bans have been proposed, this one has sparked vigorous debate.