Mother shared drugs, police say
Published: Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 1:00 a.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 at 11:07 p.m.
MADRID, Ala. – The billboard, installed three weeks ago along Bryan Smith’s fence line, casts a shadow onto his property and turns his face the color of the red clay in his driveway.
“Wait & Save!” the sign screams in big white letters that implore drivers to skip Smith’s arsenal of Chinese explosives for the next fireworks stockpile down the road.
“I just about threw a fit,” Smith said of his reaction when a competitor in the fireworks business erected the billboard barely a bottle rocket’s length from his property. “It’s more than a little irritating.”
With oily beaches scaring away tourists, northwest Florida’s economic struggles leave less money to go around. And that means nearby Alabama’s long simmering fireworks wars are really heating up as the make-or-break Fourth of July weekend approaches.
Few places in the country take a more lenient approach to recreational explosives than the Cotton State. Alabama’s official motto is “we dare to defend our rights,” and in the case of fireworks, that includes the right to buy half a stick of dynamite, rockets with a blast radius of 75 feet and mortar shells the size of baseballs.
“Alabama’s pretty wide open,” Smith said. “If it’s got a fuse and you can light it, go for it.”
Fireworks shops dot Alabama’s major highways, routes leading to popular Florida Panhandle beach destinations.
Large numbers of Florida and Georgia residents — prevented from purchasing all but the most tepid sparklers and fizzy fountains by state laws — have long crossed state lines to stockpile serious firepower for backyard and beach-front Independence Day celebrations.
That makes the Panhandle Florida’s rowdiest region for the Fourth of July, typically the busiest tourist weekend of the year and a time when many vacationers arrive with a little extra ammunition.
But a noticeable downturn this week in beach visitors driving south from cities such as Atlanta, Nashville and Birmingham has Alabama’s many fireworks dealers on edge. slow sales at the fireworks shops could be an early indicator that the Panhandle’s holiday weekend will fizzle.
The slowdown is also leading to some cutthroat behavior in an already competitive business.
Smith said he tries to run an “honorable” operation and “hopefully at the end of the day we all have enough business.”
But JR Poppell makes no excuses for his billboard by Smith’s store.
Times are tough and Poppell — the gruff cowboy of southeast Alabama’s fireworks industry with his handlebar mustache, boots and a faded straw hat — was here first.
“I’m the damn best there is, the facts are the facts,” Poppell said, smoking a Winston as he leaned back in an old gray rocking chair on his front porch.
Abraham Lincoln Poppell Jr. — “being in the South coming up in the ’60′s you went by JR” — tried baling hay and running a general store over the years, but nothing sold like the M-80s and bursting rockets he stocked on a lark one year after Alabama liberalized its fireworks law.
He moved to the current location, a red brick building with a rusty tin roof on a bluff overlooking U.S. Highway 231 just south of Dothan, in 1986.
The route is popular with beach travelers from Atlanta, and Poppell did well. so well that other entrepreneurs took notice.
There are now three fireworks stores along a nine-mile stretch of road leading to the Florida border.
JR’s Fireworks is the last shop before the border.
Smith’s Holiday Fireworks opened in 2003 and has the advantage of being the first store travelers see past Dothan.
BJ’s Fireworks, opened 12 years ago by retired school teacher June Brannon and her family, is sandwiched between.
Smith, who also owns a convenience store, and Brannon say they’re just trying to make a little extra cash in low-wage Alabama.
Poppell calls them interlopers who don’t know Black Cats from bottle rockets and don’t take the business seriously.
Have they been to China to inspect their products personally, with photographs on the wall to prove it? Do they carry the latest models like the Screaming Eagle, with a picture of a bald eagle biting Osama bin Laden’s head and 36 mortar rounds fired from one fuse?
Poppell keeps a close eye on his store from his mobile home out back. He opens the shop anytime, day or night, for a sale, greeting customers by name and recommending the newest and best products.
Loyal customers get a few extra noise makers in their paper bags.
“Well JR, another year” of angering neighbors, said one man as he left with what seemed to be enough explosives to level a city block.
“Give em’ hell!” Poppell shouted back.
Poppell tries to stay upbeat about the oil spill and the lack of beach vacationers, who account for a third to half of his business.
“It ain’t as good as it ought to be, but you better be glad you’re selling something right now,” he said.
Farther north past grazing horses, fields of hay bales and Sadie’s Flea Market, Smith quoted Kenny Rogers when asked about sales figures.
“There’ll be time enough for counting when the dealing’s done,” he said, noting that financial numbers are a highly guarded secret in such a competitive business environment.
Florida residents account for about half the sales at all three fireworks stores and traffic was still busy going north this week.
Justin Sherrard, a 30-year-old elevator builder from Marianna, left JR’s with an assortment of his favorite Roman Candles for a holiday barbecue.
Sherrard figures Florida residents might prop up sales in Alabama’s fireworks stores this year.
“I think people in Florida will celebrate even more this weekend,” he said. “They want to forget.”