Things started off badly between Aaron Enzer and Bridgewater Township. And then they got worse. A commercial airline pilot and pyrotechnics professional, Enzer wanted to shoot off some fireworks at his home on East Austin Road to celebrate his wedding. He applied for a permit to do so, but the township turned him down.

That was in 2001. Seven years later, the fireworks between Enzer and the township have grown into a nasty lawsuit over property rights and public safety—and a political confrontation.

It’s hardly the first such flare-up in Bridgewater, where it sometimes seems as though the only thing the 1,600 inhab­itants have in common is a fierce in­dependence. The township has three school districts, three zip codes, and two area codes, and it’s had four supervisors in the last six years.

No wonder the residents have found it hard to agree on what’s best for their community. In recent years, the township has seen fights over gravel mines, dog kennels, beauty parlors, riverfront pathways, planning commission appointments, and how minutes are kept at public meetings—along with the more customary issues of development and conservation. Local politics is a continual stew filled with accusations of hidden agendas and rampant distrust.

What better spot could there be for a man to store, manufacture, test, and sell exploding things?

Growing up in the Irish Hills village of Brooklyn, Aaron Enzer was always fascinated by fireworks. He likes to describe his affinity for fireworks as “a passion and a hobby.” And somewhere along the way, it turned into more than that.

Besides working as a pilot and an in­dependent computer consultant, Enzer, ­thirty-four, is the proprietor of ACE Pyro, a business that puts on fireworks displays and sells commercial fireworks and related equipment. In a court affidavit in 2007, Enzer said ACE Pyro grosses $250,000 a year. The company’s website says it “offers world class pyro-musical fireworks displays by using fully ­computer-­controlled firing and musical synchronization.” In other words, the fireworks dance to the beat. Enzer also has made how-to videos, such as Choreography by Computer, which an online reviewer describes as “an elaborate visit to the complexities of using a computerized system to create a stunning display of fireworks and music.” Enzer says he’s also volunteered his time to train more than 100 fire departments and police bomb squads throughout the state in fireworks safety and awareness.

Enzer says he kept township officials informed about what he was doing on his property, which, typically for Bridgewater, is zoned for agricultural use. Nobody ever raised any questions, he says, even as he began manufacturing fireworks and stored more and more of them behind his ­bucolic-­looking house set back from the road on a wooded eleven-acre lot. By mid-2006 there were 7,000 to 8,000 pounds of explosives there.

That was the year that then-supervisor Neel Sheth asked Enzer to file a petition for a special land use permit. In his affidavit, Enzer says that Sheth presented this application “as a mere formality.” But it wasn’t.

The township planning commission had dealt with requests for zoning variances to operate beauty parlors or dog kennels on agricultural land—but never a fireworks business. In January 2007 the board tried to grasp the issue by imagining the worst possible scenario. According to posted board minutes that summarized the discussion, commissioner Glenn Burk­hardt asked Enzer, “Have there ever been pictures taken of an explosion relative to the amount of explosives you are talking about storing?”

Enzer, a man who chooses his words carefully, replied, “I have concerns that a negative picture would fuel people’s concerns even further. The possibility of an explosion is very remote.”

But some of his neighbors already had scary pictures in their minds. At a public hearing the next month, John Jacovetty raised concerns not just about “flying debris” but also about his children’s potential hearing loss in the event of an explosion. Another said he was nervous about living only 300 feet from the building where Enzer made fireworks.

But another neighbor, Brent Fairfield, stood up for Enzer, saying he was a considerate and caring fellow who wouldn’t put children at risk—after all, Enzer and his wife had small kids of their own. Fairfield argued that Enzer’s activities were no more dangerous than the hazardous chemical storage on nearby farms or “going out to the field during deer season.” He told the board, “I don’t lose any sleep over this one.” An official from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) also spoke on Enzer’s behalf, explaining that he had passed government inspections and was properly licensed.

The township’s leaders evidently weren’t reassured. They sued Enzer, charging that he didn’t have the proper permits to store fireworks and was in violation of township zoning ordinances. In fact, however, the planning commission had not yet decisively acted on Enzer’s special land use permit, so whether he was in violation of zoning wasn’t settled. Then, acting on a complaint from Bridgewater officials, the Washtenaw County prosecutor’s office fired misdemeanor charges against Enzer for allegedly not having the proper explosives storage permit from the state.

Consumer fireworks are heavily restricted in Michigan. But Enzer doesn’t sell fireworks locally out of his home to consumers, says his attorney, John Day—he sells them only to out-of-state commercial operators. Day contends Enzer doesn’t need the explosives permit. And Enzer points to his licenses from ATF and the State of Michigan to manufacture, store, and sell commercial fireworks.

“Mr. Enzer is licensed by everybody on earth other than Bridgewater Township to do his business,” says Day. “He’s not a guy who opens up a fireworks stand in the summer. Those are the people who are usually prosecuted.”

Enzer’s defense against both the civil and criminal charges is partly based on his credentials as a “pyrotechnician.” John Steinberg, director of display operator training programs for the Pyrotechnics Guild International, submitted an affidavit in support of Enzer.

“Fireworks companies run professionally,” Steinberg wrote, are “virtually invisible to and have minimum if any impact on their community.” They’re a fine example of small-scale entrepreneurship, he added. Enzer, Steinberg enthused, is a “true professional” who in 2000 had put on “one of the finest displays ever” at a Pyrotechnics Guild annual convention. And he did equally well with “our grand finale” in 2002.

But hearing how big a bang Enzer could make wasn’t exactly the kind of reassurance Bridgewater Township was seeking.

“I mean, if you want to blow yourself up, if you want to take that risk, that’s fine,” says Fred Lucas, the township’s attorney. “But it’s not a risk that your neighbors should be forced to deal with.”

After the lawsuit was filed, a town­ship building official visited Enzer’s property to inspect a “shade structure” and four “mag­azines” used to store fireworks. The township determined his various buildings either were not permitted, were not up to code, or violated setback requirements.

In its pleadings, the township contends that Enzer “has never had a permit to operate his business.” Lucas raises the question of whether Enzer should have gotten his ATF license in the first place, or whether he will retain it, because “he was never in compliance” with local regulations.

Lucas says “whether or not township officials looked the other way in the past” is irrelevant. Nevertheless, he’s gotten previous township supervisors to swear they never told Enzer he didn’t need a permit to operate the fireworks business.

In October 2007 circuit judge Timothy Connors ordered Enzer to move his magazines farther away from property lines, stop testing fireworks in his pole barn, bring his shade structure into compliance with zoning codes, and cease all commercial activity, including sales of fireworks, within thirty days.

In the courtroom the judge suggested Enzer could comply by putting pigs in the shade structure. “We’re just not certain they can deliver the pigs in six weeks, Your Honor,” Day replied.

In court papers, Day has accused the township of a “web of shenanigans,” saying that the lawsuit seems to have shifted ground several times since it was filed. The township has even started to work on drafting a new fireworks ordinance and might seek to apply it retroactively.

Lucas admits the township has, in fact, kept moving the goalposts. “We are trying to make changes” to the ordinance “to protect the public safety,” he says.

Enzer has accused the township of trying to put a legitimate enterprise out of business. Lucas doesn’t deny that the township seeks to stop him from operating in his backyard. Lucas says he just doesn’t think Enzer can work with fireworks on the narrow parcel he now owns. Enzer reportedly has offered to store his explosives elsewhere in the township.

Lucas calls Enzer “an interesting guy” who “likes to push things to the limits.” Indeed, Enzer is the type of guy who shows up for a meeting with a reporter and pulls out his own tape recorder. He’s got a direct manner that some see as brash. He’s not shy about asserting his rights.

Enzer says he is being prosecuted and sued under fireworks laws passed in the 1930s. His attorney contends those were superseded by a 1970 state law. Meanwhile the Michigan Legislature is working on a new bill to loosen restrictions on fireworks in the state. Enzer says he can’t say any more at present because he doesn’t want to jeopardize his chances of a settlement.

His attorney, Day, blames the whole mess on the hardly noticeable suburbanization of Bridgewater: “When Aaron moved to Bridgewater, it was a low-­population-­density township. Now he has more neighbors. They’re not any closer to the fireworks—there’s just more of them. They feel like they’re a bedroom community now, and they have decided his acreage isn’t big enough for what he’s doing.”

They don’t want to hear things go boom in the night.

This being Bridgewater Township, however, Day’s theories about motivations don’t suffice. The simple explanation is that nobody minded what Enzer was doing with his property until somebody found out he wasn’t just shooting off sparklers but was working with lots of explosives.

Supervisor Jolea Mull, who is an attorney herself, won’t talk about the matter except to insist that the township is acting to protect the welfare of its residents. From Enzer’s point of view, it’s been more like harassment—though he will not use such a term himself on the record. No known accidents or injuries have occurred on his premises.

“This is witch hunting,” says former planning commissioner Mike Bisco. “This is just wrong. They’re using the issue of safety to stir the pot and make everybody worry.”

But even as he defends Enzer, Bisco asserts that his statements will be discounted because he is also a fireworks enthusiast and once had a business relationship with Enzer (doing computer consulting for an airline). Bisco also was at the center of a previous quarrel with Mull, who axed him from the planning commission in a dispute that stirred the blood of local political junkies. At one meeting, according to Bisco, Mull said one reason his appointment shouldn’t be renewed was that Bisco was a Democrat—even though he had run a few months earlier for trustee as a Republican (declaring oneself a Democrat in Bridgewater Township is tantamount to political suicide).

In late May the township sought to have Enzer held in contempt for failing to remove his fireworks. The misdemeanor charge also still awaits resolution. But in the meantime, the fireworks impresario has settled on a parallel strategy: he’s running against Mull for township supervisor. They will face off in August—in the Republican primary, of course. “It is good for incumbents to be challenged,” says Mull. “It helps keep us sharp and truly focused on serving the community.” For his part, Enzer did not return phone calls asking why he is running.

If Enzer wins, he’ll surely be in the mood to celebrate. Perhaps he’ll be inspired to light up the skies over East Austin Road with a fireworks display like the one he planned for his wedding seven years ago—assuming, that is, that he can get permission from the township.

Originally published in the Summer 2008 Community Observer, Ann Arbor, Michigan