Does the city of Durango have a policy regarding gigantic inflatable objects – like a snowman – on top of business rooftops downtown? I think they’re very tacky! Sign me, Tired Of Looking At The Snowman
One person’s embarrassing embellishment is another’s adorable adornment. That’s what makes this town so interesting. We don’t necessarily see eye to eye on everything, but we can disagree without being disagreeable.
But that’s not the case in Silverton. Did you read last week’s story? Holy cow. Here you have a town of maybe 500 people, and they can’t get along.
Silverton has this long-simmering feud that no one can explain. The local government gridlock would embarrass even Washington.
People burst into Town Hall and start yelling. Law enforcement must be summoned. The building has to be locked.
Talk about a supercilious superfund site that’s super silly.
So let’s not be like Silverton, our weird neighbor to the north. Likewise, let’s not be like our weird neighbor to the south. We’re talking Albuquerque. (More on that in a second.)
Getting back to the issue of enormous inflatable snowmen, there’s one towering over the Pet Haus, 1444 Main Ave., across from Burger King.
Action Line finds it amusing that one would be offended by a snowman, yet not object to Burger King, its garish colors and the odoriferous greasy Whopper cloud that appears each noon.
Anyway, Action Line searched all over the Municipal Code about inflatable snowmen but to no avail.
So it was time to call an expert – our good friend Shane Roukema, who pointed out two rules in the Land Use Code pertaining to inflatable snowmen, an important matter of utmost civic concern.
The Pet Haus snowman is illuminated and, therefore, exempt because it’s “specialty lighting.”
Exemptions are for “holiday lighting, displayed for less than 60 days, provided that individual lamps are less than 10 watts and 70 lumens.” Note the 60-day threshold.
The other rule in the Land Use Code is more to the point:
“Decorations that are incidental, customary and commonly associated with any national, local or religious holiday shall not be displayed for a period of more than 30 consecutive days or more than 30 days in any one calendar year and may be of any type, number, area, height, location or illumination, except for flashing or intermittent lighting or of a characteristic, which is specifically prohibited, e.g. traffic distractions.”
So, you can have your Christmas “lights” up for 60 days, but your “decorations” are allowed for a mere month.
But what if your “lights” are “decorations,” like the Pet Haus snowman? Let’s not pull a Silverton and cause a ruckus.
Besides, the snowman will disappear.
“The snowman comes down when the snow goes away, which is usually in February,” said a Pet Haus person who didn’t want to be named to avoid being put in the doghouse. “We have a lot of people who like the inflatable snowman.”
Inflatables are not new for the Pet Haus. For its fifth anniversary, the shop got one of those large inflatable tubular men with wildly flapping arms.
“We had a number of complaints about that,” the person said. “One really upset person called it ‘very Albuquerque.’”
We all can agree that those flappy-arm things definitely are tacky.
So, Durango is between Silverton and the Duke City, philosophically and physically. Call it the sweet spot.
Email questions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. You can request anonymity if you have a corncob pipe, a button nose and two eyes made out of coal.
