Guilty until proven innocent.

That sums up San Jose’s fireworks crackdown policy, according to a handful of Blossom Hill neighbors who received $500-plus citations in the mail.

Several residents on Garrison Circle, including Amy Guzules and Sally Phan, said in an interview the only way to get off the hook is to somehow prove they weren’t using fireworks as alleged by anonymous complainers.

Guzules said she was shocked when she received a $500 ticket in the mail almost a month ago.

“I almost tore it up because it was addressed to ‘Resident,’ ” Guzules said, adding that the ZIP code printed was also wrong. “The invoice was for the 13th of July, and it says I did illegal fireworks on June 12.”

A quick check of the calendar showed that June 12 was the same day the Golden State Warriors won the NBA championship.

“There were fireworks going off all over the Bay,” she said. “Maybe people look up and see things explode, they look on Google Maps and go ‘Hmm, looks like it’s probably over there; it’s these people,’ and they put those addresses in.”

In response to numerous complaints last year, the San Jose City Council increased fines for people caught using banned pyrotechnics. Fines for first-time offenders rose from $350 to $500. The fines go up to $700 for second offenses and $1,000 for each subsequent violation. Police this year nevertheless received more than 500 reports about illegal fireworks on July 4 alone, compared to about 600 last year for the entire Fourth of July weekend when the holiday fell on a Monday.

Phan, who lives four doors down from Guzules, said she also received citations for illegally using fireworks, which she denied doing.

“Our first warning came on June 28,” Phan said. “They gave us two more citations; one was for the seventh of June and the other was for July 4.”

Phan said she can’t remember exactly what she was doing on June 7 but likely her family was still at work or in school because it was a Wednesday. On July 4 she said they stayed inside all day and went to bed early for work the following day.

“At night there was an occasional loud sound that I would assume was fireworks, but we don’t know where they were coming from,” Phan said. “They were close enough where we could hear it, but not close enough that we could see it.”

San Jose code enforcement says fireworks citations are treated the same as parking tickets because they are administrative violations. This means that Guzules must pay $500 for her one citation, and Phan $1,200—$500 for the first ticket and $700 for the second. Both women must first pay the fines within 30 days of notification before they contest them to avoid late fees and interest.

San Jose Deputy Fire Chief Ivan Lee acknowledged that not much investigating is done after a complaint is filed.

“Outside of contacting the reporting party, there is no additional investigative effort put forth to go forward to the site where the alleged fireworks activity was reported,” Lee said. “It’s simply the information that has been provided by the reporting party to the online report.”

Last year, he said, complainers had to supply evidence such as video and photos that someone was illegally setting off fireworks. But the city dropped the evidence requirement to not “put the public in danger,” he added.

“It was not required (this year) because it was a concern for their safety at the time of them taking the video evidence,” Lee said, explaining the city wanted to avoid possible confrontations between neighbors.

Guzules and other neighbors said they think an online report that doesn’t require any hard evidence shouldn’t be the basis of issuing citations.

“It may be one of those things where people think it’s just easier to pay the fine,” she said. “If they’re just sending things out based on people reporting things that people didn’t actually see them doing, then that’s just not right.”

Lee said some people who could prove they didn’t break the law had fines dismissed.

“One (complainer) stated that her neighbor had been using fireworks for basically an entire week,” he said. “(She) never stated where she was observing the fireworks activity.”

The home in question was actually a duplex, and the neighbor who was cited managed to show they were out of town at the time through receipts and other paperwork.

“There’s always the potential for things like that to occur in which you try to make adjustments,” Lee said. “There’s room for improvement in any process, but one of our major concerns is trying to address illegal fireworks activity.”

Those who can’t afford to pay a fireworks fine upfront can apply for the city’s hardship waiver program, which requires proof of income and other personal information. That program is managed through the city finance department.

A city report on fireworks activity is due sometime this month; it’s possible that the reporting process could be revised again.

“We may have to go back to providing video documentation of some sort that undeniably shows who it is and hopefully captures the residence that they’re in front of,” Lee said.