Harbin v. Snowzilla

If you live in a part of the world where snow, ice and bone-chilling cold are a reality every winter, you have two basic options.

You can celebrate it, as the city of Harbin, China does every year in its Ice Festival...


Or, you can decide, as Anchorage, Alaska city officials did, that celebrating the winter in a way that brings tourists can get you branded as a public nuisance.


Anchorage Daily News, December 21:

City code officer slays Snowzilla
Giant snowman deemed a public nuisance, safety hazard

Anchorage's famous giant snow man, Snowzilla, finally met its match.
It wasn't the weather. It wasn't angry neighbors bearing shovels and pick axes.
It turns out Snowzilla's biggest foe -- the one who felled the controversial but much-loved giant -- was a notice-bearing city code enforcement officer.
That's right, Snowzilla was abated.
It was just a few years ago that 16-foot-tall Snowzilla arose in a residential yard in Airport Heights, launching an annual procession of local gawkers and an international media blitz.
Camera crews came from Russia and Japan.
But Snowzilla attracted a lot of naysayers too.
Not everybody in the neighborhood liked all the cars and visitors.
So, city officials have deemed Snowzilla a public nuisance and safety hazard.