2023 New Mexico Statutes › Chapter 60 - Business Licenses › Article 2C - Fireworks Licensing and Safety › Section 60-2C-8 - Retail sales or storage of fireworks; regulated activities.

A. Fireworks may not be sold at retail without a retail permit. The permit shall be at the location where the retail sale takes place.
B. All places where fireworks are stored, sold or displayed shall be in compliance with the code of safety standards published by the national fire protection association for the manufacture, transportation, storage and retail sales of fireworks and pyrotechnics articles.
C. It is unlawful to offer for sale or to sell fireworks to children under the age of sixteen years or to an intoxicated person.
D. At all places where fireworks are stored, sold or displayed, the words "NO SMOKING" shall be posted in letters at least four inches in height. Smoking, open flames and any ignition source are prohibited within twenty-five feet of fireworks stock.
E. Fireworks shall not be stored, kept, sold or discharged within fifty feet of a gasoline pump or gasoline bulk station or a building in which gasoline or volatile liquids are sold in quantities in excess of one gallon, except in stores where cleaners, paints and oils are handled in sealed containers only.
F. All fireworks permittees and licensees shall keep and maintain upon the premises a fire extinguisher bearing an underwriters laboratories incorporated rated capacity of at least five-pound ABC per five hundred square feet of space used for fireworks sales or storage.
G. Sales clerks and ancillary personnel employed or volunteering at temporary retail locations where fireworks are sold shall be at least sixteen years of age. A sales clerk shall be on duty to serve consumers at the time of purchase or delivery. Permissible fireworks may be offered for sale only at state-permitted or state-licensed retail locations.
H. Fireworks shall not be discharged within one hundred fifty feet of a fireworks retail sales location.
I. Fireworks shall not be sold or used on state forest land, wildlands or a bosque.
J. A person shall not ignite fireworks within a motor vehicle or throw fireworks from a motor vehicle, nor shall a person place or throw ignited fireworks into or at a motor vehicle or at or near a person or group of people.
K. Fireworks devices that are readily accessible to handling by consumers or purchasers in a retail sales location shall have their exposed fuses protected in a manner to protect against accidental ignition of an item by a spark, cigarette ash or other ignition source. If the fuse is a thread-wrapped safety fuse that has been coated with a nonflammable coating, only the outside end of the safety fuse shall be covered. If the fuse is not a safety fuse, the entire fuse shall be covered.
L. Permissible fireworks may be sold at retail between June 20 and July 6 of each year, six days preceding and including new year's day, three days preceding and including Chinese new year, the sixteenth of September and cinco de Mayo of each year, except that permissible fireworks may be sold all year in permanent retail stores whose primary business is tourism.
History:
Laws 1989, ch. 346, § 8; 1991, ch. 133, § 6; 1997, ch. 17, § 6; 2007, ch. 268, § 4.
ANNOTATIONS
The 2007 amendment,
effective April 2, 2007, added Subsection B and required persons who sell fireworks to be at least sixteen years of age.
The 1997 amendment,
effective March 18, 1997, substituted "age of sixteen" for "age of twelve" in Subsection B, rewrote the last sentence of Subsection F, added Subsection H and redesignated the following subsections accordingly, and rewrote Subsection K.
The 1991 amendment,
effective June 14, 1991, substituted "shall" for "must" throughout the section, "Smoking, open flames and any ignition source are prohibited" for "Smoking is prohibited" at the beginning of the second sentence in Subsection C and "5 lb. ABC per five hundred square feet of space used for fireworks sales or storage" for "4-ABC" at the end of Subsection E and made a minor stylistic change in Subsection F.