The mhorr gazelles won’t be switching between indoors and outdoors this year, and the giraffes and zebras prefer to stay at home on New Year’s Eve. Because the flight animals in Hellabrunn Zoo would simply panic when faced with the fireworks that were to be expected outside their enclosure. After years of abstinence, it is allowed – with restrictions – to light up again at the turn of the year in Munich.
The advance sale of pyrotechnics started on Thursday at dealer Philip Plan “brutally awesome”, “half of the range is already sold out”. The youth fireworks display “Tollkühne Helden” with more than 395 individual parts for 9.99 euros awaits you on the supermarket shelf, right next to it the fireworks battery “Magic Loom” with a burning time of 50 seconds and an effect height of 25 metres. After absolutely nothing was allowed in the Corona year 2020 and in 2021 only leftovers in the home garden could be blown up, this year the people of Munich can again squander their money almost uninhibitedly.
The city only adheres to the conditions that no fireworks may be set off at Marienplatz and in the pedestrian zone in the city center as well as on the Viktualienmarkt between December 31, 9 p.m. and January 1, 2 a.m. Exceptions are the sparkler and the firecracker. Whereby pea really means a pea – and not a firecracker. Because the latter pyrotechnic articles of category F2 are completely forbidden within the environmental zone of the middle ring.
“In the past, narrow buildings, dense crowds, traffic jams, alcohol and incorrectly used fireworks have led to dangerous situations around Marienplatz,” says district administration officer Hanna Sammüller-Gradl. And anyone who, for example, wanted to welcome the New Year in the city center on New Year’s Eve 2017, or had to get to safety from rockets firing at an angle at the turn of the millennium, knows what the experts are talking about. In recent years in particular, many Munich residents and members of the district committees have complained about noise, garbage, stress for the animals and fine dust during the New Year’s slide. That’s why they want to ban the firecrackers completely from the area of the middle ring.
According to Sammüller-Gradl, anyone who does not comply with the bans risks a fine. In any case, the Munich police are at the start that night with 1,200 emergency services. The Bavarian Palaces and Lakes Administration also points out older buildings in need of protection: burning pyrotechnics is prohibited at the Nymphenburg Palace, for example, as is the Chinese Tower in the English Garden and the Japanese Tea House.
Firecrackers are not available everywhere, but the sale of pyro articles has apparently started well
(Photo: Andreas Arnold/dpa)
In fact, a generation-spanning discourse has long since flared up around the question of fireworks: many young people who are committed to climate protection consider firecrackers and rockets to be outdated in view of the fine dust levels. The Department for Climate and Environmental Protection 2022 reported “encouragingly low values” in the city between midnight and 1 a.m. on January 1st. At the Landshuter Allee measuring station it was just 62 micrograms per cubic meter – in 2020 and 2019 the carcinogenic particles were still at 686 and 855 micrograms, respectively.
Some hardware stores no longer participate in rocket sales
The Hornbach hardware store in Munich announced on its website that it had already decided in 2019 to no longer offer fireworks for “reasons of animal and environmental protection”. If you enter the search term “rocket” there, you only end up with the “blue rocket juniper” for 29.95 euros or the “clamping roller blind Lichtblick without drilling” with a printed missile. The Toom hardware store in Haidhausen also no longer lights up, and according to a saleswoman, Obi is also a pyro-free zone. “It’s also better for the animals,” she says, and explains that her dog will be getting children’s headphones this year.
Mayor Verena Dietl (SPD), Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board at Hellabrunn Zoo, also calls for the New Year’s sky to be left in the dark, and Director Rasem Baban asks at least not to fire from the Thalkirchner Bridge or the Harlachinger Hang. And in the already overburdened emergency rooms of the Munich clinics, everyone is happy about every patient who doesn’t even come.
The old Germans are said to be to blame for all the fun around New Year’s Eve, who wanted to drive away evil spirits with the noise. Pyrotechnician Philip Plan from “Götterfunken Feuerwerke” comes to mind as something positive: “This mood, the color art in the sky, the smell,” he enthuses. The colorful lights had fascinated him since he was a child. Today he sells youth fireworks such as ground vortices or small volcanoes as well as sound and smoke products in two shops in Munich all year round. He delivers bang and a lot of smoke for film productions – or to farmers who want to get a plague of pigeons under control. This year he can finally get his range of rockets ready for launch again on the days before New Year’s Eve – the safe howlers and candlesticks with the CE mark.