San Pedro gets its big fireworks show

Cars & Stripes Forever kicks off the Fourth of July weekend festivities on Friday, July 1, 2022, featuring live music, classic cars and a fireworks show at the foot of the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro. (Photo by Howard Freshman, Contributing Photographer)

People chow down as Cars and Stripes Forever kicks off the Fourth of July weekend festivities on Friday, July 1, 2022, featuring live music, classic cars and a fireworks show at the foot of the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro. (Photo by Howard Freshman, Contributing Photographer)

Cars and Stripes Forever kicked off the Fourth of July weekend festivities on Friday, July 1, 2022, featuring live music, classic cars and a fireworks show at the foot of the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro. (Photo by Howard Freshman, Contributing Photographer)

Cover band Radio Active performs on the main stage surrounded by classic cars at the annual Cars & Stripes Forever event in San Pedro on Friday, June 28, 2019. About 40 classic cars were on display as well as bands performing on two stages and fireworks capping off the evening. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)

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All is not lost, San Pedro.

While the town’s decades-old fireworks show at Cabrillo Beach is off this year — with a July 6 drone show scheduled instead — the Port of Los Angeles came through this week with some news that should console the more traditional Fourth of July celebrants.

The port’s annual “Cars and Stripes Forever!” celebration, set for June 28, managed to book its usual fireworks finale after finding a vendor in Pennsylvania.

“We looked high and low for a vendor,” said POLA spokesperson Arley Baker.

The challenges are especially daunting for any fireworks show over water, which have been the focus of lawsuits and drawn the ire of some environmentalists.

Required in-water cleanups and other extra measures have put more pressure, expense — via insurance and financial requirements — on the companies that provide the fireworks extravaganzas.

The port’s usual vendor — Fireworks America, which also did the Cabrillo Beach program for many years — wasn’t able to pull it off this year, leaving Cars and Stripes’s traditional fireworks finale in limbo.

But the port scurried to book another producer who could provide the big fireworks blowout — and succeeded.

The family-owned Zambelli Fireworks — in business for 100 years and located in Warrendale, Pennsylvania — was able to pick up the job, Baker said, in part because Cars and Stripes happens on an off-holiday date.

The challenges, Baker said, aren’t easy, as contractors now have to arrange for additional permits and insurance, as well as meet regulations for shows done over the water.

The Cabrillo Beach drone show planned for July 6, meanwhile, should bring out a big crowd to see something new, Baker said.

“I think it’s going to be a great season,” he said.

Cars and Stripes Forever! is the port’s lead-up to the Fourth of July holiday, held on the Friday night before Independence Day, and featuring classic cars, live bands, and food trucks, all finishing with spectacular fireworks over the port near the Vincent Thomas Bridge.

This year’s event will showcase more than 100 pre-1975 cars and motorcycles.

The location itself is among the big draws for the annual party, which kicks off the summer holidays, Baker said.

“People bring cars down from Santa Monica and other places,” Baker said. “It’s a great event, we’re proud of it. It was originally created to activate that (northern) area of the waterfront. The community kind of embraced it as the start of summer, the start of the Independence Day holiday.”

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