Brickbats

Toi Pruitt, her three children, and her boyfriend, Joe Pulliam, planned to move into a house Pruitt and Pulliam bought in Black Jack, Missouri. But city officials refused to issue the family an occupancy permit. Officials say that because the children aren't related to Pulliam, the quintet doesn't meet the city's definition of a family.

Clyde Scott was in his barbershop cutting hair when a police officer walked in and gave him a ticket—for cutting hair. The city of Houma, Louisiana, has a decades-old law banning haircuts on Mondays. It also forbids cutting hair on Sundays, on several holidays, and on the days after a few of those holidays.

Lenny Woodward is 96 and nearly blind, so you'd think people might understand when he accidentally put two glass jars in the wrong recycling bin. But sanitation workers in West Earlham, England, told the World War II veteran they would not take the bin until he removed the jars. Woodward told them he was physically unable to bend over and get them out. So they left the bin where it was and refused to touch it for two weeks.

Lenny Woodward is 96 and nearly blind, so you'd think people might understand when he accidentally put two glass jars in the wrong recycling bin. But sanitation workers in West Earlham, England, told the World War II veteran they would not take the bin until he removed the jars. Woodward told them he was physically unable to bend over and get them out. So they left the bin where it was and refused to touch it for two weeks.

Massena, New York, code enforcement officer Gregory Fregoe says inflatable pools are a menace, and he has cited at least 20 people so far this year for having them. City and state codes say any pool with at least 24 inches of water, even inflatable ones, must have a permit, a four-foot-high locked fence, and an audible alarm to let people know if someone falls in.

Tom Kleven thought he'd prepare for a triathlon by swimming across Minnesota's Lake Nokomis. But a lifeguard ordered him back when he was about halfway across. When he returned to shore, the Minneapolis Park Police cited him for swimming too far. He faces a $1,000 fine and 90 days in jail if convicted, and since Kleven is a doctor he'll have to report the incident each time he applies for renewal of his medical license.

Jackson, Mississippi, Mayor Frank Melton has been indicted on federal civil rights charges. Two years ago, Melton and his two police bodyguards led a gang of youths who attacked a duplex he claimed was a crack house. They ordered the occupants out at gunpoint and smashed the place up with sledgehammers. No drugs were found in the house.