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Big Bang on the Bay cancelled amid fireworks denial — at least for now

April 28, 2026

Chris Haire Big Bang on the Bay, a beloved over-the-water fireworks display and block party that usually lights up the sky the day before Fourth of July each year, has been cancelled, marking the apparent conclusion of a yearslong battle between the event’s organizer, and environmental advocates and a state commission.

Last year, the California Coastal Commission, the state regulator charged with protecting coastal resources, approved a five-year permit for Big Bang on the Bay — and the 2025 show went off without a hitch. Thousands gathered in Long Beach and even Seal Beach to engage in the annual tradition.

But one major caveat came along with the Commission’s approval: After the 2025 event, fireworks would no longer be permitted. Instead, the Coastal Commission said, it would only allow a drone show or other fireworks alternative moving forward, despite concerns from both event organizer, John Morris, and Long Beach city officials about the feasibility of putting on a drone show over Alamitos Bay.

Morris, the show’s founder and owner of Naples Restaurant Group and Boathouse on the Bay, accepted the terms of that 2025 permit from the Coastal Commission, but decided to submit one last appeal this year, asking for an exemption that would allow him to have a fireworks display during the 2026 Big Bang on the Bay — celebrating America’s 250th birthday.

Morris made his play for one final fireworks show by sending a request for an amendment to the previously approved five-year permit, which, would have allowed a fireworks display this year. But that amendment request was denied by the commission’s executive director. Morris then appealed that decision, which brought it back before the commission on April 15 for a final determination.

Ultimately, the commission voted against Morris’ appeal, siding with the executive director’s original decision to reject the amendment, arguing that to approve Morris’ appeal would effectively undermine the entire intent of the original 2025 permit, which specifically prohibited fireworks after that year’s show.

“This has already been voted on, and it was crystal clear to the applicant that that was the final year of fireworks,” Caryl Hart, the commission’s vice chair, said during the meeting. “There’s absolutely nothing that would have stopped the applicant from fleshing out the drone show proposal. But that just never happened.”

Event organizer John Morris hosts the Big Bang on the Bay block party and fireworks show on Thursday, July 3, 2025, at Morris’s Boathouse on the Bay restaurant in Long Beach. (Photo by Howard Freshman, Contributing Photographer)

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The Coastal Commission, in recent years, has repeatedly argued that Morris could transition from hosting a fireworks show over Alamitos Bay to a drone show instead — saying the alternative is safer for water quality and wildlife in the area.

Concerns about Big Bang’s impact on the water and wildlife in Alamitos Bay came to a head in 2021, when nonprofit advocacy group Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation filed a lawsuit against Morris and his restaurant group, arguing that Big Bang on the Bay had violated the Clean Water Act by disseminating pollutants into the water. The group’s intent was to have the event banned.

A federal judge later ruled against CERF, though the organization was able to prove in at least one instance that Big Bang on the Bay had released fireworks discharge into Alamitos Bay during the 2022 show, violating the CWA. But despite sufficient evidence to prove one CWA violation in that specific instance, the judge said, there wasn’t enough proof to show ongoing pollution — or that similar pollution was likely to occur again.

That ruling, hailed by Morris as a win at the time, resulted in a new set of challenges for Big Bang on the Bay, as it set a new precedent that over-the-water fireworks shows should be regulated under that law via a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, which aims to prevent water pollution by regulating the sources that cause it.

A little more than a month after the court’s ruling, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board adopted that new permitting process, which required fireworks show organizers to establish and comply with a plan aimed at outlining procedures to avoid water pollution.

That decision led some fireworks producers in the region to pull out of over-the-water shows and caused some events to be canceled. It also drew the ire of Morris, who, at the time, called the ruling frustrating and unnecessary. Still, Morris applied for and received the five-year NPDES permit.

The challenges for Big Bang on the Bay, though, continued.

The 2024 iteration of the July 3 event, for the first time in its history, was cancelled after Big Bang’s organizers failed to obtain a separate California Coastal Commission permit for the show by the deadline.

That year, Morris turned the permitting process over to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach, which was unfamiliar with the process and filed the application too late. The show, however, was eventually rescheduled for a few months later — and took place successfully on the eve of Labor Day.

But Big Bang’s long-term future was still in jeopardy at that time, as Morris and his restaurant group continued fighting for it in court. CERF had filed an appeal on the initial court’s ruling, the verdict of which was released in September 2024.

The opinion found that because Big Bang on the Bay was able to secure an NPEDS permit from the regional water board, CERF’s argument that the show poses an ongoing threat to the Clean Water Act, or the environmental health of Alamitos Bay, was essentially invalid.

And then came last year’s decision by Coastal Commission to approve a final fireworks display for Big Bang and subsequently prohibit fireworks at future shows. That seemed as if it would be the end of the yearslong battle.

Morris, though, said at the time that he would try to make a drone show happen — and that’s what he’s been working on since last July.

Morris met with multiple contractors, he said in a Tuesday, April 28, interview, to try to determine where to stage a potential drone show, the cost and various other factors. He also spoke with the Long Beach Fire Department.

Despite the Coastal Commission’s repeated assertions that a drone show would be fully feasible over Alamitos Bay, the Long Beach Fire Department has been clear since the commission’s 2025 vote that it would not permit a drone show in any of the Alamitos Bay locations proposed by the state body.

An LBFD spokesperson, in a 2025 interview, said the drone staging areas proposed by the commission wouldn’t work for various public safety reasons, including that it would restrict access to crucial fire lanes, would require all ships and boats to vacate the bay during the show — which would be “next to impossible” — and could cause issues surrounding the actual airspace the drones would fly in.

Anything flying above 100 feet over Alamitos Bay, the LBFD representative said, would fall under Federal Aviation Administration jurisdiction — presenting an entirely new set of regulatory complications for putting on a drone show.

Morris said he spoke with a fire inspector again this year, after meeting with three different drone companies, who all said the Alamitos Bay location and the amount of drones needed to put on a show comparable with the fireworks simply wouldn’t work.

“He (the fire inspector) basically said it’s not viable,” Morris said.

Still, the Commission, even at the April 15 meeting, argued that a drone show would be feasible over Alamitos Bay. Coastal Commission spokesperson Josh Smith, in a Monday, April 27, statement, reiterated much the same.

“Mr. Morris never submitted a plan to the city for a drone show, so we don’t have a substantive determination from city officials referencing the specific FAA regulations affecting the feasibility of a drone show in Alamitos Bay,” Smith said. “There are various ways that drone shows can be configured, so we can’t make any determination on feasibility until we have that information.”

But to Morris, who said he had done the legwork needed to figure out how a drone show would work over Alamitos Bay, going through an official channel just to get a rejection would be a waste of time, he said.

“They said, ‘Well, he didn’t submit an application,’” Morris said. “Why would I do that? I’ve already been told it’s (going to be) no. Why would I spend the money to submit an application I knew was going to be rejected? That would be stupid.”

And even if a drone show were possible over Alamitos Bay, Morris said, it would be prohibitively expensive compared to the traditional 20-minute fireworks show. While it costs around $50,000 to put on the fireworks, Morris said, a drone show of similar magnitude would cost around $200,000 — and put a major dent in the amount of money the show is able to donate to charities.

Since its inception, Big Bang on the Bay has also served as a fundraiser for various local nonprofit groups. The cost of the fireworks show, traditionally, has been paid for with money raised through donations and ticket sales to the Big Bang block party — and whatever’s left over goes to various charities.

Big Bang has raised more than $2 million for charities since 2011.

“To do a show the equivalent of the fireworks show, which is what everybody would expect, you need a minimum of 1,000 drones,” Morris said. “And that would cost (around $150,000 to $200,000); fireworks cost $50,000. That means there’d be no money left for charity.”

Morris also took issue with the fact that several other over-the-water fireworks shows are permitted to go ahead this year across California.

This year alone, Smith said, the Coastal Commission has approved over-the-water fireworks shows for the Port of San Diego’s Big Bay Boom and SeaWorld San Diego’s annual fireworks displays — both of which are in the processing of converting to drone shows. Other shows in Northern California have also been approved this year, Smith said.

Fireworks displays are also rarely required to obtain a Coastal Development Permit from the Coastal Commission, which can be a costly and time-consuming process. Instead, temporary events with little or no impact on the natural environment or public access to the coast are granted exclusions from the CDP process.

“Temporary events that don’t harm wildlife or other coastal resources or block public access don’t require permits from the commission,” Smith said. “However, if the public provides evidence that any type of temporary event, including fireworks shows, is causing harm, we let the operator know that they need to apply for a permit so that the activities can be revised to minimize impacts.”

Other fireworks shows in Southern California, including at King Harbor in Redondo Beach and Marina Del Rey — which are also over-the-water fireworks shows of similar size and duration to Big Bang on the Bay — are granted that exemption.

“We aren’t aware of any such impacts associated with Redondo Beach or Marina Del Rey,” Smith said.

Big Bang on the Bay was also granted that exemption from the start of its operation in 2011 all the up until 2023, when Coastal Commission decided there was enough concern around the show’s potential impacts to require Morris to get a CDP for the event.

Despite Morris’ multiple wins in court, he is still required to go through the CDP process.

“It’s not about the science; it’s not about the bird studies, because they have been absolutely 100% clean,” Morris said. “They’ve (the Coastal Commission) never in 10 years asked a question regarding the reports that are submitted by outside agencies. They’ve never questioned them.”

The Coastal Commission, meanwhile, argues that it has given Morris years to figure out an alternative to fireworks, and that the agency’s intent is not to stop the event from happening entirely, noting that it has continued to permit the Big Bang on the Bay block party.

“We realize it takes time to adapt to and implement change. That’s why we’ve worked with Mr. Morris since 2023 on how best to address impacts to public access and nesting birds, including consideration of a drone show,” Smith said. “Mr. Morris agreed to and accepted the conditions of this permit at the time it was issued. In total, Mr. Morris has had three years to prepare for a drone show in Alamitos Bay. To be clear, the daylong block party preceding the 20-minute fireworks display at the end remains fully permitted and can continue as planned.”

The fate of Big Bang on the Bay, though, may not be sealed just yet.

The show has the support of many local officials, including Third District Councilmember Kristina Duggan, Mayor Rex Richardson, Seventh District Councilmember Roberto Uranga, Rep. Robert Garcia and Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, who all either wrote in public comments or spoke in support of the show during the April 15 meeting.

Even Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has become involved with the matter. Shortly after the Coastal Commission’s decision, the governor’s office posted online offering its two cents about the vote.

“This is NOT a decision the Governor made,” the post said. “Our office is looking into this matter on behalf of the people of Long Beach!”

It’s unclear what authority Newsom’s office has to change the commission’s decision. A representative from his office declined to share further information about Newsom’s authority in this situation, or additional details about what looking into the matter has uncovered.

Morris also said that state Sen. Lena Gonzalez’s office has reached out to him to see if they can assist with any kind of solution.

“The Coastal Commission says, ‘We’re not stopping your party.’ Oh yeah, you are. The main act is not coming,” Morris said. “I’m holding out, of course, for hope, but I’m not going to get myself excited and get disappointed.”

But unless something changes, Morris said, he’s closing the book on this long-running community tradition for good.

Big Bang on the Bay cancelled amid fireworks denial — at least for now Orange County Register

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Big Bang on the Bay cancelled amid fireworks denial — at least for now

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