Am I A Jerk For Setting Off Fireworks in my Neighborhood?

If a neighbor of yours is setting off fireworks would you go out and ask them to stop? It happened to me over the weekend in Poughkeepsie, NY and I'm wondering if I handled the situation the right way or not.

For as long as I can remember hearing fireworks explode all over the Hudson Valley this time of year isn't anything new. The Fourth of July is a big fireworks day for many, as is any big type of celebration, right? Wrong, if you live anywhere near my neighborhood in Poughkeepsie, New York!

Graduation Party Angers Neighbors in Poughkeepsie, New York

That's what a few of my neighbors said over the weekend as we were celebrating a few High School graduates in my life. My daughter Julianna and my girlfriend's daughters both graduated from high school this year and over the weekend we held a party at my house to celebrate them. We invited family and friends, informed most of our neighbors that we would be having a party that weekend (even invited a few of them), and didn't think there would be any problems, that was until I added fireworks to the celebration.

Stop the Fireworks!

The daylight portion of the party went great, with good food, drinks, and music but as the sun set and it got dark things went off the rails...LOL! Let me start by saying I had no plans to set off fireworks at all during the party. I worked earlier in the day in Pennsylvania and was near a fireworks store and thought it would be fun to celebrate the graduates with a few explosions so I bought a couple hundred dollars worth of fireworks.

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As the party started to wind down I gathered everyone who was left in our yard and began launching fireworks into the sky. After a few explosions, one neighbor came out and said that the explosions were making her dog freak out and asked me to stop. If you know me, I love dogs so I asked her if I could move further down the street and see if they still bothered the dog. She agreed and as I started walking down my driveway to relocate another neighbor came down the street calling out my name!

Party Pooper in Poughkeepsie

As she approached she also asked me to stop shooting off the fireworks immediately because she was worried they would start a fire at her house. She said something along the lines of "I don't want to be a party pooper but...." At this point, everyone left at the party was watching for my reaction and honestly, I wasn't sure how to react. One side of me wanted to just keep shooting them off but I took the neighborly route and decided to stop.

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When I got back into my yard everyone started making fun of me for stopping.....NOT FUNNY...LOL! Anyway, if something like this happened to you how would you handle it? Did I do the right thing? Let me know through our station app (above).

Now I have to figure out what I can do with all of the fireworks I have left over. Maybe I'll open a roadside stand at the end of my driveway and try to sell them to my other neighbors.