AMERICA is different. Where else would it be an offence to have your boat visible from the street?
One man took a fence to this bizarre byelaw by quite literally painting a photo-realistic copy of his boat on the fence.
Etienne Constable from Seaside, California, received the order from his local municipal authority, demanding that he adhere to the rules of parking restrictions for non-passenger vehicles.
According to the rules the boat needed to be hidden from the street by a 6ft fence and despite having a boat parked on his property for the previous 29 years without issue, Constable was forced to comply.
“We’ve been here for a long time,” Constable told the Washington Post, “and nobody had ever said anything before.”
Facing a £78 ($100) fine Constable started thinking how he could both comply and have some fun.
“I thought, ‘This is ridiculous,’ and my first reaction was to leave a nasty, nasty message at the city hall,” he says. “And then I thought, well, I might as well build a screen … I’ll do what they want, but I’m not going to do it their way.”
Constable’s neighbour, mural artist Hanif Panni, was quickly conscripted into the plan and a fightback was launched in the shape of a perfect matching artwork as if the fence was never there.
The boat painting quickly went viral
“The more people see something, the more opinions there are about it … and it’s just so fun to see those branches stemming off of something that I created,” Panni, whose artist name is Hanif Wondir, told the Washington Post. “One of the reasons why I do public art, and art in general, is to inspire those conversations.”
The oarsome boat picture didn’t go unnoticed by council officials though, Seaside’s acting city manager, Nick Borges, said they were forced to take action after years of being lax about their municipal code.
They had recently hired someone to enforce the codes, but Borges was actually impressed with the bold move.
“I thought, ‘wow, that’s pretty creative.’ We’re not taking any action,” he said. “The only action I’m going to take is a high five, and that’s it.”
