Mayor Haaksbergen is asking residents not to use a folding hammer this year

Mayor Welten van Haaksbergen asks his residents not to use a folding hammer during the end of the year. The call follows an incident last year on New Year’s Eve with a hammer blow. A 12-year-old boy was killed and an 11-year-old boy was seriously injured.

The parents of the deadly victim had asked Welten to introduce a local hammer ban in Haaksbergen before this new year. The municipality had subsequently investigated what was possible, but from an organizational point of view such a scheme appears to be impossible in the short term.

The general local regulation (APV) should be modified for this purpose. Since the city council has to officially approve it, this will no longer be possible this year. However, the municipality will continue to work on a possible ban on the folding hammer after the end of the year, it reports RTV Ext.

A folding hammer is a metal structure, about the size of a table, with a hinge and a hammer-like tip. An explosive powder is placed in a container at the bottom. Then the powder is hit with the hammer, resulting in a loud bang. The folding hammer has been a tradition for many years in various villages in Twente.

12-year-old Bram was last year on New Year’s Eve fatally shot in the chest making pieces of metal fly from the jackhammer. Robbin, 11, was left with permanent leg injuries from the blow.

38-year-old Sebastiaan O., who operated the folding hammer, was yesterday condemned to 240 hours of community service and three months suspended prison sentence. The court accuses him of acting rashly and of having committed an “accumulation of mistakes”.

A municipal spokesman informs RTV Oost that Mayor Welten will soon be making his appeal in a door-to-door newspaper. He will also emphatically warn about the hazards of carbide blasting.

While there is no official legal ban on the jackhammer, the spokesperson says the APV offers legal options to take action against people using a device “that looks dangerous” or dealing with potentially dangerous substances. “In that case we can take enforcement action.”

For example, anyone who wants to buy the explosive mixture of potassium chlorate with sulfur powder – which is used in percussion hammers – must have a permit to do so.