Kicker: An illegal snowball fight

NICK EICHER, HOST: It may not have occurred to you that snowball fights could be criminal acts, but in Wausau, Wisconsin just they might be. 

A city ordinance says, “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 or at, in or into any building, street, sidewalk, alley, highway, park, playground or other public place within the city.”

Well, then!

But apparently the ordinance, which seems pretty straightforward, is misunderstood.

MIELKE: Hello, I’m Robert Mielke, mayor of the great city of Wausau. Recently, a national magazine or media source had mentioned that Wausau is not a fun city. That can’t be true!

To prove it, he staged a snowball fight with Wausau police officers on public property in gross violation, seemingly, of this misunderstood city ordinance.

But the city says the ordinance wasn’t meant to restrict a reasonable person’s fun. It’s only been enforced for snowballs a few times when people threw them at passing cars.

So, let the fun begin.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

(Photo/Wausau Police Department) In this image from a video by the Wausau Police Department, Deputy Chief Matt Barnes reads the local snowball ordinance while members of the department have a snowball fight in the background.

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