From the IA's on this July 5th, I gather July 4th isn't the most well-loved holiday on the calendar.

Dear Anonymous
After reading both articles, I must admit I took great pleasure in your dissatisfaction that your attempt to be Capt. Buzzkill completely & utterly failed. Walking around NE and seeing the sky lit up with beautiful, glorious, massive fireworks was a pleasant surprise. Watching 4 kids battle each other with Roman Candles in a baseball field was pretty entertaining as well. Sorry it sucked for you, although I'm sure more folks will jump into your boat on cracking down on firework fun in the future but if anything this holiday reminds us that Americans don't like being told what's not allowed whether it be in smoking, marriage and apparently lighting off fireworks as well! In the mean time may I suggest home insurance and a vacation up to Canada; the people are friendly, the sights beautiful and when you come back Independence day will have come and gone =D Good day sir!

We've come to dread 4th of July in PDX the city I was born and raised in because of the renter rat trash homes that live in the large flag lot behind our 104 year old home that we own. We were up until 1 am watching them shoot off illegal fireworks (some came into our property found July 5th AM!) Our twin 10 year old boys could not sleep (one has autism and was a hellian the next morning) that I can deal with, but the terror we went through last night is NOT worth it and completely ruins it for everyone. Seriously. There was no common sense, no law, no nothing but H3LL over on our street. Wish PDX would ban and seriously take action on these illegal fireworks! Especially from those that shoot them for hours on end and over others homes!

Oh and BTW, we do have SECURITY VIDEO of the RENTER RAT TRASH home that was shooting these off over all our homes too! (not that the police would care, we did not call them because we knew they would NEVER come unless our 104 year old home burnt down!) Yea, we are going to contact their LANDLORD on Monday. So sick of this crap!

Whoah, Cindy M, while it's reasonable to not want your home to catch on fire,'RENTER RAT TRASH'? Really?? We should all be so lucky to have purchased homes back in 1910 when you could get them for a mule and a bag of sugar. You lucky bastard.

BooberMcDoober, LUCKY? I was a single full time working MOM when I bought this house back in 1990. I went through hell to buy it and I'll be damned if RENTER RAT TRASH is going to make us move now! I've seen all kinds come and go back there in the 24 years I've lived in my 1910 built home, but the sh*t back there now (3 of 4 homes built in this flag lot hell behind us) is the WORST ever. I wish I could put up the videos to prove it, but so scared of back lash from this shit from HELL

Black Flag Lot

Cindy M, I do sympathize, but if you're even a little bit afraid of your neighbors do you think it's a great idea to use a photo of your children as your icon?

I was at that park and the show was quite impressive. I didn't really think about the legality of it all, but whatever floats your boat, sport.

Good Point @ Todd. Tried to fix and update pic but not working. @ Douglas, Yeah we can see loads from our high up front porch and see them going off at the park two blocks north from our home. That is fine and have seen that year after year here and we have no problems with it. But we DO have a problem when the back nasty flag lot behind our home (the renters doing this illegal firework activity only there for 1 year now) is doing this activity in much too close proximity to other peoples homes! Just more RENTERS FROM HELL living back there with the other two renter rat trash homes. Seriously, this was one of the worst 4th of July's we ever had here in the 24 years I've lived here. Sucks to live in SE PDX.

Portland cops are 100% reactive. They will drive right by a crime, and if it hasn't specifically come over their radio as something they need to check out, they just keep cruising. I expect absolutely nothing from Portland police and am never disappointed.