Bones of contention

She first put up skeletons for Halloween. Then when Christmas neared, Alexis Luttrell added some holiday flair, dressing her 8-foot skeleton man in red and green colors. She even gave the skeleton dog a Christmas tree toboggan hat. But officials in her Germantown, Tenn., hometown aren’t so festive: They say the decorations have got to go. A code ­compliance officer handed Luttrell a citation for violating the city’s Holiday Decorations Ordinance. According to city officials, Luttrell could only keep her skeletons up from 45 days before to 30 days after Halloween. And changing the skeletons’ themes to reflect other holidays wouldn’t get her out of the citation or the Feb. 13 municipal court date. Rather than acquiesce and take down her ­skeletons, the Tennessee woman filed a case in U.S. District Court alleging Germantown’s decorations law violates her First Amendment right to free expression. “Why do one or two people in code enforcement get to decide what counts as an appropriate holiday decoration?” Luttrell told WMC-TV. In a Feb. 19 filing, Luttrell’s attorneys asked the federal court for an injunction to prevent city officials from enforcing the decorations ordinance until the case is resolved.