Brickbat: A Nightmare Before Christmas (and After Halloween)

Decorating for Halloween, Alexis Luttrell put a skeleton and a skeleton dog in her yard in Georgetown, Tennessee. She then left them up after the holiday, adding a Santa Claus and a Christmas tree, plus Christmas decorations on the skeletons. For her efforts, the city cited her for violating an ordinance requiring decorations to be placed no more than 45 days before a holiday and to be removed no later than 30 days after. Luttrell has a court date in February and says she plans to fight the citation.

Comments

[Adans smith]

So dress them for MLK day and the problem's solved.

[Vernon Depner]

We need concentration camps for Karens.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Arbitrary regulations are the best regulations.

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

These are the 9ft tall Home Depot skeletons?

Good. Put her in jail

[mad.casual]

A house in our village has 4 of those and probably close to a dozen of the 6' variety standing around the yard and has decorated them through every holiday for probably 5-6 yrs. straight now. Of course, in addition to the skeletons, they fly several LGBTQIA+ flags (and we're talking about no more than a quarter acre lot).

It's kinda like obnoxious amounts of bumper stickers that, either way, just advertise that you're the worst kind of neighbors and people.

[sarcasmic]

Some people around here posed their Halloween skeletons around a plastic tree in a tangle of lights for Christmas.

[defaultdotxbe]

We have a house around here that poses their skeleton hanging lights on their gutter.

For November the same skeleton gets a pilgrim hat.

[GroundTruth]

Taste is personal, not something to be legislated.

A local home has had a skeleton sitting on a toilette in the front yard since Halloween. At Christmas it was joined by a second sitting on a park bench placed by the first. Dumb - yes, a bit gross - perhaps, but illegal - not in my book.

[diver64]

That's an interesting thing. I'm sure the city can show in the ordinance what a Christmas decoration is defined as. Actually, I bet they can't and even if they did that pesky 1st Amendment would get in the way.

[AT]

Why didn't you use the photo from the source article? It's... telling.

A phoned in effort does not magically turn an old decoration into a new one.

Luttrell said she purchased the skeletons for yard displays throughout the year

Weird. Also, suggests intent to defy the ordinance.

“It may seem trivial, but it’s a very frustrating thing not to be able to express myself because, quite frankly, I have already purchased decorations for pride month,” said Luttrell.

Oh that explains a lot. I will forgive all of this if she wraps pride flags around skeletons.

'course, then she'll get charged with a hate crime.

I’ve lived in neighborhoods where we’ve done that.”

Well, you don't live in one now.

Luttrell said Germantown needs to spend more time addressing clear violations of city ordinances and believes many citizens feel the same way.

THEY DID.