The City of Auburn will not enact a fireworks ban on June 16 after all.

As the result of a meeting Thursday with tribal representatives, city officials agreed they would wait one more year in order to judge steps the tribe pledged to take at that meeting to address citizen concerns, particularly those stemming from noise generated by the reservation’s fireworks discharge area north of the Muckleshoot Casino.

Community members, especially those living on the south end, have long complained about the noise, and it is one of the major reasons behind calls for a ban. Police Chief Jim Kelly proposed in December that the city ban all fireworks except for sparklers. The current rules, which make illegal “whatever goes up or blows up,” require interpretation on the part of officers, and an outright ban, Kelly has said, would be simpler to enforce.

The tribe on Thursday agreed to close the discharge areas by 10 p.m. between Mondays and Thursdays and by 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. While the city would prefer that the stands open later than the third week of May as they typically do, that will be the subject of additional discussions over the next year.

“We will talk about the timing of when the stands open and how quickly the area is cleaned after July 4, which is also an area of concern,” said Mayor Pete Lewis. “We will meet knowing that after the June 16 meeting, if a ban would go into effect, the earliest it would be in effect would be July of 2010.”

“. . . This is an opportunity for the tribe and city to find a collective solution,” said Councilman Gene Cerino.

Lewis and Cerino met with tribal attorney Alan Stay, representative Rollin Fatland and tribal chairwoman Virginia Cross. Cross is one of two members of the recently-appointed tribal fireworks commission.

Calls to the tribe were not returned for this article.

“We had some discussions about when that discharge area actually needs to open, and we are going to talk about that more. Perhaps they don’t need to open as early,” Lewis said.

The discharge area typically opens by the third week of May, not so much for the sake of fireworks sales, but to allow the fireworks manufacturers to demonstrate their products for stand owners.

Because the livelihood of so many tribal members depends on revenues generated by the annual sale of fireworks, the tribe was alarmed about the anticipated ban. While a ban could hurt sales, the city has no power to shut down the stands. The tribe is limited sovereignty nation, and because it is, the city can only enter areas owned by tribal members on the reservation under certain conditions.

“We told them this is open awful late at night,” Lewis said. “Their response was, ‘Well, the sun doesn’t go down until late at night.’ That’s the reality of the area in which we live. They also said they are going to have security at the discharge area. Because they know they can count on our police when necessary, they are going to enforce the hours, shut it down, tell people they have to leave,” Lewis said.

“I think it’s another sign that we are starting to work together and understand the responsibilities and abilities of each side,” Lewis said.