Cedar Rapids city leaders decided to follow state law when it came to setting off fireworks inside the city. Now some council members want much tighter controls after plenty of noise complaints and calls to police.

Cedar Rapids lets people set off fireworks on their own property until 10:00 o’clock at night weekdays through July 8th. Still, police say as of Sunday, they’d received a total of 136 complaints that an officer was sent to investigate.

In the month of June, the department also had about two dozen reports of “shots fired” in which police found no evidence of gunfire. They’ve ruled those cases likely fireworks noise as well.

An

started Sunday calls for council members to ban the use of fireworks inside city limits. As of mid-day Monday, more than 2,500 people had signed the petition.

One southwest side resident, Ryan Fuhrmeister, says he used to like fireworks and even made trips to Missouri to buy some and set them off in remote areas.

But after night after night of “boom, boom, boom” outside his apartment window he’s had enough.

“I was excited about the new fireworks law. For about one week. Then the constant blowing up of fireworks over and over again has kind of worn me out on it,” he said.

City council members say they agreed to the state time limits for use, five weeks at the 4th of July, because there wasn’t time to research options.

Scott Overland, a city council member, was a “yes” vote to the longer limits last month. He says he’s likely to change when the council reconsiders after the holiday.

“I don’t think it’s all bad necessarily, by following the state law, we’ve seen what the result has been in Cedar Rapids over the last couple of weeks,” Overland said.

Scott Olson, an original “no” vote in May, believes the council will move to restrict use after complaints by parents with small kids and pet owners about noise and lost sleep.

“Based on what I’ve seen, there would be a different vote. We would look at either a very short period of time when fireworks are allowed or I’m going to propose we continue our ban,” he said.

Olson says he originally wanted to let people set off fireworks inside the city on July 3rd and July 4th and again on December 31st and January 1st. He’ll make that proposal again when the council takes up the issue again.