At Tuesday's Wichita City Council workshop, the council received a review of the 2025 fireworks season.
The Wichita Fire Department responded to 92 fireworks-related calls during the holiday. Wichita Battalion Chief Jose Ocadiz says after a review of the reports, the department concluded that three structure fires, not zero, involved fireworks, but added that the detonation was not the ignition source. Losses totaled $14,700.
Twenty-nine people, between the ages of 2 and 48, suffered fireworks-related injuries.
The county's non-emergency phone line received 1188 calls, with 866 of those calls within the Wichita city limits.
The city's main enforcement efforts centered on after-hours fireworks. Fourteen teams patrolled on July 4 - 6, between Midnight and 2 a.m. and issued 19 citations.
The city's revenue from fireworks tent permits totaled $112,500, which partially funded 2025 enforcement efforts and will help fund marketing efforts ahead for 2026, and America250 celebrations.
Next, the council discussed efforts by city's law department to create a license process for hotels and motels within the city limits.
Those entities currently are regulated by the state. If Police receive a complaint, there's not much they can do outside of enforcing the law. The city says an ordinance that would license hotels might allow them to respond faster but add that the licensing process and the added work would be burdensome.
The workshop also included a discussion about economic development. The city is discussing a proposal to move away from program-based incentives like industrial revenue bonds and tax-increment financing to incentives like property tax abatements and sales tax exemptions.