Tents are Up and Ready to Make Your Fourth Sparkle

'Tis the sign of the season:  red, white and blue-striped tents with "fireworks" emblazoned across them in larger-than-life letters.

Over the weekend, three large tents cropped up at Janesville and Moorland Roads at the Jetz Center, another in front of Pick n Save, and on the west end of Janesville on Racine Avenue in front of Piggly Wiggly.  Here's a quick run-down of each one:

American Fireworks, Moorland and Janesville Roads

In general they are open 8:30 a.m. - 8 p.m. but the worker there (Kyle) said they'll remain open if people are still shopping, and hours will likely stretch the closer they get to the holiday.  Buy one, get one free seems to apply to everything under the tent and prices range from $0.99 to a few hundred dollars.

TNT Fireworks, Janesville Road between Lannon and Parkland Drive

David and Henry were manning the tent, and they end up sleeping there to make sure the inventory is secure.  (Other tents break down the items and put them all back in trailers, only to undo it all the next day.)  Hours there are 9am-9pm 7 days a week until just after the 4th.  Here too items range in price from just under a dollar to several hundred.  The main feature was the "Spectacular Show" pack which is specially priced at $499.99.  Purchasing the items individually would run nearly $800.

"We don't want to take it back - we don't have room in our vehicle," said David.  "We think someone who wants to get a group to purchase it for the neighborhood might be interested, as the buyer who would spend $500 generally is looking for the stuff that shoots in the air." (TNT Fireworks is based in Florence, AL, with a distribution center in Green Bay.)

American Fireworks, Janesville Road and Racine Avenue

Owned by the same company as the tent on the opposite end of Janesville Road, the sellers are there now 10am - 7pm, and will extend their hours to 8am-8pm on the weekend.  The side of their tent offers bottle rockets, but as they can't sell them in Muskego, they referred us to freebottlerockets.com.  In addition, a drawing to win a $200 pack of assorted incendiaries is being held here.

In general, if you are hoping to find anything that soars or explodes, that ship has sailed.  Muskego requires a permit for such fireworks, and applications were due last week Friday.  Otherwise the tents offered literally hundreds of options for things that spray sparks, spin, smoke and produce a fountain.

Most popular are the small items (lady bugs and tanks) as well as the big ones that produce huge fountains for an impressive display.  American Fireworks is local, with the business based in Big Bend, and the ability to sell the Class C fireworks that boom and plume high in the sky.  However, while you can obtain a permit to purchase these things at the Big Bend location, you will still need your Muskego permit to set them off.

While it was only apparent at the TNT tent, the minimum age for purchasing fireworks at the tents is 18.  Most sellers said they generally pack up as soon as the fourth is over, but have the ability to sell until July 7.