ST. LOUIS — Fireworks are illegal in St. Louis, but on the Fourth of July weekend for the past several years, you likely wouldn’t know it.
Heading again into the holiday, the Post-Dispatch collected five years of data on calls made to city police about fireworks.
That data shows that calls spiked last year as public fireworks displays for large crowds were canceled amid the pandemic, prompting more residents to hold their own backyard shows with little regard for the city ban.
St. Louis police last year received 950 fireworks calls over a four-day period. That was up 16% from the year before and 55 more calls than any of the previous four years.
The calls represent only a fraction of the actual number of fireworks blasting off into city skies as many don’t bother — or wouldn’t want to — call police on their neighbors.
The data shows which areas of the city have kept police the busiest over the past five years.
Topping the list are three heavily populated south city ZIP codes: 63118 (which includes Tower Grove East, Benton Park, Benton Park West, Gravois Park, Marine Ville and parts of Dutchtown); 63116 (which includes the rest of Dutchtown, Tower Grove South, Bevo and Holly Hills); and 63111 (which includes Patch, Carondelet and Mount Pleasant).
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