NEWPORT — A private fireworks display at a Newport mansion is a heck of a way to impress your guests, especially when they’re powerful pols from around the country.

But on a school night? With all of that ka-booming? How will the neighborhood children get their rest?

City councilors are expressing some regret over their decision to allow House Speaker William J. Murphy to shoot off fireworks at Rosecliff to cap off a weekday reception last month. Murphy was wining and dining three dozen of his counterparts from other states, along with their spouses and aides, as part of the five-day annual meeting of the National Speakers Conference.

No sooner did the finale end than the phones began ringing. Residents were dialing their council representatives to complain.

“One call I remember was from a father whose children had gone to bed already and were sound asleep and the fireworks had woken them up,” said Councilman Justin McLaughlin, who heard the fireworks from his home, two miles away, only to realize that he and his peers on the council had routinely approved the display without considering that it would be on a school night.

On Sept. 10, the council considered a request from Murphy for permission to put on a pyrotechnics display in eight days — a Thursday — from 9:30 to 9:50 p.m. The location: Rosecliff, the 106-year-old Bellevue Avenue mansion where The Great Gatsby was filmed.

Such permit requests in this summertime tourist mecca aren’t unusual. In fact, the council several years ago passed a resolution further regulating private fireworks. It moved up the time of how late the shows could go from 11 p.m. to 10 p.m. and required permit holders to publish notice of the shows in advance and to hire police details for displays lasting more than 15 minutes.

Like many before it, the fireworks display the speaker requested was routinely approved.

“I just don’t think we thought of the ramifications,” McLaughlin said.

So after darkness fell on Sept. 18, fireworks began exploding from a barge in the waters off Rosecliff. The show capped off a day where the politicians were scheduled to meet and discuss “leadership and the current political environment” while their spouses were to tour Newport’s mansions.

But for many families in Newport it was just another school night in what was the third week of the academic year — another night to get the kids to finish their homework and to go to bed earlier than in the lazy days of summer.

McLaughlin received a few complaints that night, as did fellow councilors Kathryn Leonard and Jeanne-Marie Napolitano.

“It’s not a large number of people, but it’s my sense that when one person calls there are probably 10 others who wanted to call but couldn’t find your number,” said McLaughlin.

The complaints got McLaughlin thinking about further restricting fireworks displays.

“I’m not opposed to fireworks,” he said. “If you tell me we are going to have them, I’ll go watch.”

But, he added, once summer is over and school is back in session, “Maybe what we need to do is say, ‘Hey, Sunday through Thursday you have to be done by 9. Saturdays and Sundays you could do it later.’ ”

McLaughlin cosponsored a resolution that he presented to the council last week. It requests that the administration review its ordinances and consider prohibiting fireworks altogether on school nights or prohibiting them after 8 p.m. on school nights.

City Manager Edward F. Lavallee is expected to make a recommendation to the council in the near future.

“Newport is a nice place to visit … but you have to balance out everything,” said McLaughlin, explaining that residents shouldn’t be unreasonably inconvenienced by visitors.

Newport, he said, “is an international tourist destination [but] if it weren’t for the residents there wouldn’t be an international tourist destination.”

rsalit@projo.com