Not all take a shine to firework sparklers for New Years

In July, the popular tourist village was overrun with fireworks — both legal and illegal — with one boisterous user tossing one at a horse-drawn carriage near Million Dollar Beach, causing the spooked horse to bolt into oncoming traffic.

There are currently 453 active permits issued to businesses — distributors, wholesalers and retailers — according to figures from the state Office of Fire Prevention and Control.

Under the current law, signed into effect by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in November 2014, local governments are barred from imposing any such controls once their county decides, according to an opinion this summer from the state Department of State.

The state won't be getting statistics on sparkler sales — and any potential problems, injuries or fires — until July 2016.

"Right now all we have is anecdotal stuff, like from Lake George, where there were problems, and Middletown (Orange County)," said Robert Leonard, a spokesman for the Firemen's Association of New York State.

In the Capital Region, sparklers were linked to two local fires — one that heavily damaged a Kingsbury home in Warren County and another in Horicon, also in Warren County, where a man placed spent fireworks in a truck that later rekindled and set other fireworks ablaze.