I am either ignorant or the 1.4 show requirements have changed. I have been putting on shows at friends farms out in the country for 6 years. I recently hired a landscape guy to work at my house. He informed me of signs posted out in the country, that 1.4 shows are illegal. This is in Texas. So, do I need a SEO to do a 1.4 show on private property? Do I need a magazine to store 1.4 product? I have not checked the laws in the last 3 years. Thanks.
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The laws haven’t changed. They are poorly written, conflate NFPA 1123 and 1126 and thus make if very difficult to figure out what really applies in different scenarios.
I’m not qualified to give legal advice, so don’t take my word for it. But, I can say that the State Fire Marshal’s Office does interpret the rules to mean that any display (including 1.4 displays) in front of 50 or more people does require an SEO on site and $1mil in pyrotechnic liability insurance. I think their interpretation is wrong and that it is meant to only apply to proximate displays (nfpa 1126), but the SFMO is the one enforcing the laws and until somebody wants to challenge that in court, that’s what we deal with.
Are 1.4 displays illegal in Texas?, of course not. Could a particular county ban them?, I wouldn’t think so. But, then, they can pretty much do whatever they want until it gets overturned in court.
Storage of 1.4: No magazine required, but you might need to check out the state’s distance table: Figure: 28 TAC §34.824 and other storage requirements in the administrative code.
Personally, I would suggest that if you are doing multiple displays and especially on other people’s property without any pyrotechnic liability insurance, then you are certainly taking some significant risk. It’s probably worthwhile to just get the SEO (cheap and easy to do) and then at least $1mil in pyrotechnic liability. For backyard folks, it can be had for less than $2,000/yr and Fuse has written a very detailed doc about it here on this forum: Texas Pyrotechnic Licensing Overview .
Texas laws can be found here:
Texas Occupations Code:
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/OC/htm/OC.2154.htm
and here:
Texas Administrative Code:
https://texreg.sos.state.tx.us/public/readtac$ext.TacPage?sl=T&app=9&p_dir=P&p_rloc=15006&p_tloc=&p_ploc=1&pg=65&p_tac=&ti=28&pt=1&ch=34&rl=823
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