Brickbat: No Selling Cartoon Balloons in This Town

Eduard Gori?ev / Dreamstime.com

The New Shoreham, Rhode Island, town council has banned the use and sale of balloons. Officials say the move will reduce pollution and protect wildlife. They previously banned plastic bags for the same reasons.

Comments

[Jerryskids]

So Levon's back on the unemployment line?

[Eidde]

So is the balloon guy from The Third Man.

[Inigo Montoya]

I'd almost forgotten how good that movie is.

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

Sound track is half the enjoyment.

[SQRLSY One]

Condoms will be banned next! Or are they already, as a type of balloon? What about balloon catheters!?!? What about buffoons?!??!

[I am the 0.000000013%]

One good snort will hide a condom for a brief while. Perhaps it works with contraband balloons as well?

[target]

I know where I'm going to film the video for my cover of 99 Luftballons

[MSimon]

Condoms can be used as balloons.

[Fuck you, Shikha (Nunya)]

And latex gloves.

[Rat on a train]

When your community is surrounded by water and you see the wrath of balloon trash daily, it's no wonder they are banning balloons altogether

Wrath of balloon trash? Is that Star Trek fan fiction?

[This Machine Chips Fascists]

These balloons are mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore!

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

"Khaaaaaandom!"

[Trollificus]

+1, pun/movie reference/article combo

[Inigo Montoya]

Better headline: Balloons banned, clowns and children hardest hit.

Why am I not surprised that officials can pull this sort of crap on a whim? This is why I tell people authoritarianism, like white cauliflower or green cauliflower, may come in a couple of different varieties, but it is all the same.

[Rhywun]

I often hear it argued that FedGov is bad, state gov is worse, but local governments are the worst and this is evidence. They can pretty much do anything they want.

[Brandybuck]

All tyranny flow up from the bottom. The worst tyrants are the petty tyrants. The run for city office because they want to do something about that damned yapping dog next door, but after they've managed to ban dogs they have nothing else to do. So they meddle with other people's lives.

[Don't look at me.]

They get their training by being on HOA boards.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Balloons Blow, a nonprofit organization dedicated to warning the public of the dangers of balloons...

An organization with an inflated sense of purpose.

[SQRLSY One]

They should be renamed Balloons Buffoons!

[Don't look at me.]

The whole thing is going to blow up in their face.

[Conchfritters]

No more water balloons? I guess they want the kids to stay inside and get fat, stupid, and lazy, just like the New Shoreham town council. They probably don't want any competition.

[Rhywun]

I guess they want the kids to stay inside and get fat, stupid, and lazy

It's not like they're banning Xbox.

[Old Mexican - Mostly Harmless]

But are these Chinese balloons, or American-made balloons? Ah, there lies the difference!

Making America Grating Again!

[Fuck you, Shikha (Nunya)]

I think a trip is necessary to just outside this town. A large bag of balloons that might accidentally be randomly dropped on the ground in various locations would be purely coincidental.

[Longtobefree]

I looked at the BB website, and looked it up at the Florida Corporate records site, and Balloon Blow is one family.

[Rebel Scum]

banned the use and sale of balloons.

So no balloons for b-day parties. Why do they hate children?

[I am the 0.000000013%]

Making it impossible to become a makeup artist.

Banning balloons.

I see where this is going...

[Trollificus]

Suggestion to the City Council:
Banning CITIZENS entirely is the scenario that would generate optimal protections for the environment. If you find yourselves stuck with having to have living human beings within your jurisdiction, perhaps a more general ban on their activities, with the regrettable-but-necessary exceptions of working and taxpaying, would be in order.

(Man, that 'reductio ad absurdam' stuff is difficult when they start at 'absurdam'...)

[?rboles de la Barranca]

What are the hooligans going to use at the next football match?