Sales skyrocketing at fireworks booths in wake of Fourth of July cancellations

"Oooooh!!" 4-year-old Charlotte Fors cooed as she and her brother, Spencer, 6, admired bags of colorful smoke balls beneath a blue and white TNT Fireworks tent.

"Apparently, they’re planning on buying everything,” their mom, Connie Fors, said with a laugh.

The Post Falls family visited the TNT Fireworks stand in the Super 1 Foods parking lot at 805 E. Polston Ave. on Wednesday to stock up for a Fourth of July celebration at home.

"We’re just going to do a family show,” dad Derek said. "We’re just patriotic Americans, we believe in the Fourth of July. It’s mostly important for them anymore."

The enthusiasm and sparkles in these kids' eyes as they perused TNT's inventory is what the rest of North Idaho is feeling in the wake of community festivals and fireworks shows being canceled because of COVID-19 — "Let's buy everything!"

"We’ve seen a huge increase in sales,” said Joel Butler, who helps run the Polston TNT stand. “We’ve had bumper numbers for all of our days so far."

Butler, a pastor at Life River Fellowship in Spokane Valley, is in his third year volunteering at the stand, which brings in funding for his church. He said it hasn't been super crazy, but business has been consistent since they opened last Friday.

"We're seeing well over double our average sales," he said. "Even Tuesday, overcast, rainy, it was kind of a dreary day. It ended up being our second-highest sales day since Friday."

Business is also booming at the Big Boom Fireworks at 1600 E. Seltice Way, which sponsors the Guardians Foundation, an organization that supports homeless and at-risk veterans.

"We’ve doubled in sales already this year,” said manager Cindy Richard, who has managed the booth for five years. "Up until yesterday, I was wondering if I was going to even have any fireworks left."

Holly Bonwell of Post Falls visited Big Boom to buy sparklers and an arrangement of fun fountains she planned to light for her granddaughters.

“I’m grateful that Idaho allows fireworks,” she said. “I grew up in the Spokane Valley and we always had fireworks back then.”

Richard said customers have already once cleared her stand of big 500-gram fountains as they are making huge purchases to make up for not being able to go to a big show like usual.

"They’ve all been pretty much complaining about the shows being closed,” she said.

Butler said people have been asking the TNT volunteers about what there is to do on the Fourth.

"We see a lot of Washington plates, people that are up here vacationing or whatever, or visiting family, people wondering what is legal or not legal," he said. "A lot of people go to the reservation, a lot of people are looking for aerials and mortars and the big stuff and we only sell stuff that’s approved by the fire inspector for all of Kootenai County, so what we sell can be lit off anywhere in Kootenai County. Obviously, you see at night people are shooting off the big mortars and stuff already."

"It’s definitely not anything like we've seen," he said.