If you grew up in an area of the United States where the winter brings plenty of snow, then you know the joy of going outside with family and/or friends and getting mixed up in a little snowball fight. Unfortunately for people in Wausau, Wisconsin, they have been prevented from enjoying that experience.
According to a report from the New York Post, the Wisconsin city has had a longtime ban on snowball fights but they could soon be lifting the order and decriminalizing the wintery event.
Snowball fights have been banned due to an ordinance that was put in place in 1962.
“Maybe it’s worth giving a look to see if that list could be amended, to mitigate that odd news story that keeps coming up like a bad penny,” Wausau City Council President Lisa Rasmussen said.
Who could have ever guessed that banning something children — and adults — do across the United States regularly would draw negative attention, especially during the holiday season and throughout the months of winter?
From the report:
The municipal code in Wausau — which averages 56 inches of snow a year, double the national average, reads: “No person shall throw or shoot any object, arrow, stone, snowball or other missile or projectile, by hand or by any other means, at any other person.” Barnes said the department has used the ordinance to write only about 10 tickets in the last 15 years, according to Wisconsin Public Radio News.
Out of the tickets written because of the rarely used ordinance, only two have been from throwing snowballs. Others incidents that resulted included dropping sandbags off of the roof of a parking ramp, and shooting crossbows into a neighbor’s yard. We can totally understand getting tickets for shooting crossbows into someone else’s yard.
As for the snowballs, let’s hope that the folks in Wausau, Wisconsin loosen up a little bit and learn to have some fun.