gunfire in the night

When we were here a few weeks ago to find a place to live, we both heard what we thought was someone firing a gun late at night. This happened more than once, and when we were finally able to get to a window to look around in the dark, we found that it was fireworks--bottle rockets, maybe the occasional firecracker. Our assumption was that these were leftover fireworks from Chinese New Year, but there was no way to be sure. This sort of thing has continued to the present, so it's definitely not leftover fireworks from Chinese New Year, particularly since we've noticed that the fireworks often come from one particular direction.

I was at dinner the other night and one of my colleagues asked a local about this. It turns out that among the reasons why this happens is that it's part of opening a new business. I question how much what we've been seeing/hearing is new businesses, but at least we've got part of the mystery solved. It's definitely taking some getting used to, though--even knowing that someone isn't being executed a few blocks away.