On January 19th in Zhengzhou, the weather was very cold, and the water on the ground became ice. However, there was a long queue outside an office hall at the intersection of Jianshe Road and Xuancheng Road in zhongmou county, Zhengzhou.
They are all people who want to sell fireworks and firecrackers during the Spring Festival this year.
Li Xiaojun, who is waiting in line, said that he also sold fireworks and firecrackers in the local area during the Spring Festival last year. He sold more than 300,000 yuan in total, and finally earned 100,000 yuan. This year, as soon as he heard that he started to "apply for a certificate" again, he rushed over again.
"There are few people today," Li Xiaojun told the First Financial Reporter, pointing to a team of more than 30 meters long. If you want to come yesterday, there will be more people, and thousands of square meters of open space outside the service hall have been filled.
According to the official information released by zhongmou county, there are two "accreditation" locations in zhongmou county this year, one is the office hall where Li Xiaojun is located, and the other is near Tongcheng Avenue and Moxiang Street. Among them, a video of "Thousands of people queuing for fireworks and firecrackers licenses in Zhengzhou" spread on the Internet on January 18th was shot near Moxiang Street.
However, Lu Yan, a staff member of zhongmou county Emergency Management Bureau who is maintaining order at the scene, told CBN that the "accreditation" circulating everywhere on the Internet is actually a misunderstanding of the current policy in zhongmou county.
Lu Yan said that if you want to engage in the sales of fireworks and firecrackers, it is of course essential to apply for a fireworks and firecrackers business license, but what the local authorities are doing now is to conduct safety training for the potential fireworks sellers who have signed up first, and have not yet reached the step of "issuing a permit".
The local propaganda department also explained to the outside world that zhongmou county has not yet received the exact news about "banning and changing the restrictions" or "lifting the ban" in Zhengzhou.
This means that it is still unknown whether Zhongmou will finally allow fireworks and firecrackers to be set off this year. However, even so, the sales of fireworks and firecrackers were booming during the Spring Festival last year and the resulting huge profits in the industry. Many applicants flocked with the expectation of lifting the ban on fireworks and firecrackers this year.
The reporter noticed that among the people queuing at the scene, besides the fireworks distributor such as Li Xiaojun, who started to enter the business last year, there are also some new entrants.
A young man with a tender face told CBN that he was a freshman and was on winter vacation. He heard that selling fireworks could make a lot of money, so he signed up.
Standing behind this young man is a middle-aged man who is engaged in whole house customization. He said that he didn’t make any money this year and wanted to sell fireworks and firecrackers during the Spring Festival to earn some lucky money for his children.
Among this middle-aged population, a wealth story that he relishes is that one of his relatives sold fireworks and firecrackers in Zhengzhou last year. In many cases, his daily turnover was more than 200,000 yuan, which eventually became the biggest motivation for him to try to transform into a fireworks distributor this year.
However, some people are not optimistic about this year’s sales prospects. Li Xiaojun said that fireworks and firecrackers made more money last year, but there were fewer products and more demand. This year, with so many people signing up at once, the competition at the terminal will be fierce, and it is hard to say whether they can make money in the end.
But no matter whether you make money or not, the expenses you should pay and the process you should take are indispensable. Take Li Xiaojun as an example. The first fee he has to pay is the training fee 600 yuan.
According to the regulations of zhongmou county, a sales outlet must be equipped with at least two employees, namely, the sales director and the safety management personnel. The two employees must go through the unified training of a third-party company entrusted by the local government and pass the examination before they can qualify for sales. After the training is finished and the certificate of qualification is obtained, you have to find the booth quickly. After that, you have to check the safety and fire-fighting equipment of the booth by the street office and fire-fighting unit where the booth is located before you can get the business license and get the final sales qualification.
Moreover, even with the sales qualification, goods (fireworks and firecrackers) can’t be sold casually, and they must be purchased from designated fireworks and firecrackers wholesale enterprises. Moreover, goods are not allowed to be stored in warehouses and can only be sold on booths.
Interlocking, it seems to form a safe closed loop.
However, in the view of Zhou Jian, president of Henan Institute of Reform and Development, these security measures need to guard against another hidden danger, that is, will the market form a new gray industrial chain after the deep intervention of power?
"The so-called practice of issuing business licenses now is, in essence, actually franchising the market economy through power intervention." Zhou Jian said that the current measures to strengthen control over the sales of fireworks and firecrackers are of course conducive to safety, but the risk point of the whole fireworks and firecrackers should include not only the sales end, but also the consumer terminals with frequent safety accidents.
Zhou Jian said that in recent years, a background of fireworks ban is that many places have gradually implemented "global ban on burning" and "full-time ban on fireworks" because of the pressure of environmental assessment. Now, after the ban has been implemented for so many years, when the external environmental protection situation is still grim, it will suddenly "lift the ban" on fireworks, which will make some people confused about the introduction of policies, and it needs to be given a reasonable explanation.
The reporter noted that in the "Notice on the Setting of Fireworks and Firecrackers Sales Points in zhongmou county during the Spring Festival of 2023" issued by the local authorities in early 2023, the reason for "lifting the ban" was "to respond to the concerns of the masses, meet the spiritual needs of citizens and friends for the’ taste of the year’, create a happy and peaceful holiday atmosphere, and ensure the safety of the masses."
On the evening of January 19th, Zhengzhou issued the "Notice on Printing and Distributing the Implementation Plan of Fireworks and Firecrackers during the Spring Festival of 2024 in Zhengzhou" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), and determined that the sales time of fireworks and firecrackers during the Spring Festival this year was from 7: 00 to 23: 00 every day from January 31st (the 21st day of the twelfth lunar month) to February 24th (the 15th day of the first lunar month), and the discharge time was limited to 7: 00 to 23: 00 on February 2nd (the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month). From 7: 00 on February 9 (New Year’s Eve) to 1: 00 on February 10 (the first day of the first month); 7: 00 to 23: 00 every day from February 10th (the first day of the first month) to February 14th (the fifth day of the first month); February 24th (15th day of the first month) from 7: 00 to 23: 00.
It is mentioned that the goal of the notice issued by Zhengzhou City is to effectively reduce environmental pollution and ensure that fireworks accidents do not occur by guiding the general public to consciously abide by the regulations on fireworks and firecrackers.
"This notice shall come into force as of the date of promulgation. The "Regulations on the Prohibition of Fireworks and Firecrackers in Zhengzhou City" (Order No.217 of the Municipal Government) was suspended at the same time, and it will be resumed immediately after the discharge time stipulated in this notice. " Zhengzhou City said in another Notice on Strengthening the Safety Management of Fireworks and Firecrackers during the Spring Festival in 2024.
For a fireworks distributor like Li Xiaojun, the long-hanging heart can finally be put down. Next, he will make full efforts to raise funds to prepare for the next peak season of fireworks sales.
(Li Xiaojun and Lu Yan are pseudonyms in the text)
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