A Beijing man has been detained for selling firecrackers without a license, following a month-long safety campaign, police said yesterday.

Tang Yunli, deputy chief of the social security administration department of Beijing's public security bureau, said that between Nov 20 and Saturday, 78 people were found selling illegal firecrackers and more than 17,000 boxes of the product were confiscated.

The campaign is an annual event aimed at ensuring the public's safety during the calendar New Year and Spring Festival holidays, he said.

Zhang Qiucheng, from the Pinggu district of Beijing, was arrested after buying 6,000 boxes of firecrackers from a wholesaler in Hunan province in September.

"Although Zhang had a license to sell firecrackers last year, he did not have one for this year. So what he was trying to do was illegal," Tang said.

The bureau will be extended and a hotline has been set up for people to report the illegal sale of firecrackers, he said.

"People who provide us with useful information about illegal or unlicensed retailers will be paid a reward of 20 yuan for every box of fireworks we later confiscate, up to a maximum of 20,000 yuan," Tang said.

Pan Di, director of Panda Firework Company, one of the country's biggest licensed manufacturers, said people should put safety first when it comes to fireworks, and buy them only from licensed retailers.

"Most unlicensed retailers sell illegal firecrackers, which are generally low quality and can be extremely dangerous to the people using them," he said.

(China Daily December 24, 2008)