It’s hard enough to be a volunteer firefighter. They rush into burning buildings. They get up in the middle of the night to battle blazes. They save lives.
“I personally don’t think you should be selling hoagies in the rain, in the freezing cold, on the weekend,” Pennsylvania state Rep. Ryan Warner, R-Fayette County, told a group of firefighters assembled at the state Capitol Monday morning. He’s hoping his recently introduced legislation will do just that – take some of the burden of fundraising off of firefighters.
Fundraisers are what pay the bills for Pennsylvania’s volunteer fire companies, but the coronavirus pandemic brought these efforts to a halt with restrictions on in-person gatherings.
At first, some fire companies were holding online raffles, and that was working great, until they were contacted by the state police and their county treasurers’ offices, saying under their small-games-of-chance licenses, they were not permitted to accept credit or debit card payments.