Police are reminding residents that buying and using aerial and exploding fireworks without a license is still against the law in Connecticut.

“Over the past few weeks the public has been overwhelmed with advertisements, signs, and sales pitches of so-called “fireworks,” state police wrote in a news release last week. “July 4th always raises questions about what is legal as far as fireworks are concerned. “

The answer, according to state police Detective Joseph Lombardi of the Fire and Explosion Investigation Unit, is that everything but sparklers and fountain-style displays are illegal.

And while the law banning all aerial and explosive fireworks in Connecticut has been in place for years, Lombardi said police respond to multiple fires and accidents every year caused by amateur fireworks enthusiasts.

“It’s a common thing,” Lombardi said. “There are states around us that allow that stuff. It’s not very difficult for someone to get in the car and pick up something illegal.”

Most people in Connecticut don’t have access to the 200 feet that Connecticut law requires even licensed pyrotechnicians to put between their fireworks and spectators.

“We don’t really have the distances required to safely use them,” he said. “Go to a licensed display,” he recommended. “People get hurt because they just don’t have the ability to do it safely.”

Sparkler and fountain sales were just getting started Sunday at the local tented outposts of the Alabama-based fireworks distributor TNT Fireworks.

“We usually get the big ones,” said Eric Urbina, who said he was stationed with the U.S. Navy in Texas, where fireworks are legal, before moving to Groton over a year ago.

Urbina came to the TNT Fireworks tent outside the Waterford Wal-Mart store to buy sparklers and fountains Sunday afternoon with his 5-year-old child. He said he would buy aerial fireworks if they were legal in Connecticut, but would settle for sparklers this year.

People who aren’t familiar with the laws in Connecticut are often disappointed when they ask for aerial or exploding fireworks, said Rich Ellis, who was manning a TNT Fireworks tent outside the Crystal Mall in Waterford.

“They come in and say, ‘Got anything under the table?'” Ellis said Sunday. Fireworks sellers must obtain municipal and state permits before they sell the legal fireworks, and face fines and jail time if they do.

“I don’t know and I don’t want to know” (what the penalty is),” Ellis said.

Enforcement won’t stop people from driving to New Hampshire or Pennsylvania to buy fireworks that are illegal in Connecticut, Lombardi said.

And, he said, there could be more accidents than police know about. People aren’t always willing to report accidents caused by illegal fireworks, he said.

“It’s very underreported,” he said.

Even sparklers and fountains have rules: they can only be legally purchased and used by people age 16 or older in Connecticut.

“We see young children at a home with sparklers — it’s not the safest thing to do,” Lombardi said. “You wouldn’t light a stick on fire and say ‘here hold this,’ but that’s essentially what it is,” he said.

Letting professionals use aerial and exploding fireworks is a good rule of thumb, he said.

“We don’t see too many accidents with the stuff that’s legal.”

m.shanahan@theday.com