No municipal but national ban, heavy penalties for possession
A ban per municipality alone will not help, says Fröhlich. “It doesn’t make much difference if you can buy it everywhere. It is very complicated to achieve a ban in the Netherlands, as ‘The Hague’ also indicates. Something like this should be regulated at European level, people buy it in Germany and Belgium. If If the government prohibits something, you must also be able to enforce it. If it is clear from the front that it is a wash, it is not a credible ban. I do believe in the signal, but of course it does not work.
Fröhlich also advocates strict penalties for the possession of cobras or shells, for example. “Ask a parent whether he or she is okay with a child keeping three grenades in his room. “The answer is ‘Of course not!’ But that is literally what is going on,” he argues. “In the past, you had to hand in your strings and move on. That shouldn’t apply to these things, these are no longer fireworks. I think people who we know have it should be severely punished.”