meat

I spent this past weekend in Minnesota with the Brothers Flynn, and on the trip to Minneapolis with Sam, we saw an inordinate amount of fireworks stores. Not just a few of them, somewhere around five of them. These were not just roadside operations, but rather, they were huge buildings with equally large billboards extolling the virtues of pyrotechnics.

Now, I'm no businessman (Mark Antony, anyone?), so I have absolutely no idea how these firework facilities can fiscally function for full years between each fourth of July. These places are open all of the time. While I've never truly investigated any of these institutions outside of holiday shopping, the fact that they are key players in organized crime seems to be the only conclusion with any merit, real or imagined.

As for their specific role in organized crime, money-laundering would seem to be the most obvious thing to assign them to, but their potential as storehouses for anything from weapons to drugs seems to be far greater. The fragile way that one handles fireworks would be advantageous to the smuggler, as it lends itself to the handling of other delicates, such as firearms or containers filled with heroin or cocaine.

At some point this year, I'm going to investigate the local branch of these 'firework' operations, Cornelier Fireworks. I don't know exactly what I'll do, but I'll probably just go in and say to whoever is working, "What goes on in here all of the months that aren't July?" and hope that they don't immediately shoot me in the face. My death notwithstanding, it should be an illuminating experience.