COLLIERVILLE, Tenn. — The town of Collierville is trying to save face after an embarrassing mishap.
Officials told homeowners to follow an ordinance the town itself didn’t follow.
Hypocritical is definitely the word a lot people are using.
The ordinance says outside Christmas decorations need to be down by Jan. 15.
But up until Thursday morning, some of the town’s own decorations were still up in parts of Town Square.
This Collierville homeowner says it happens every year.
People are leaving Christmas decorations up, long after the holiday.
“They keep them up a long time. They’re, well, they’re still up,” a resident said. “It’s time to start a new year. It’s time to go on. You know, I feel like hey, take them down.”
About 150 homeowners have received notices since Jan. 15, even thought the town didn’t comply until Thursday morning.
Town officials admit, it wasn’t the best move.
“We understand that it’s our role to walk the walk and lead by example,” Mark Heuberger, spokesman for the town of Collierville, said.
Heuberger says crews would have taken the decorations down on time had it not been for last week’s icy weather.
“They were busy clearing the streets, running snow plows, putting de-icer on the streets and collecting garbage,” he said.
On that not, he says anyone who got a notice will be given extra time to comply.
“When there’s bad weather like that it’s hard to expect a customer or resident to get out in the ice and snow and risk sliding on their driveway, or on a sidewalk, taking down their decorations,” Heuberger said.
He says the notices were just reminders, not citations.
Either way, he says officials probably wish they could do it all over again.
” I think with the weather being the situation that it was, we would have held off on the notices.”
In extreme cases, a homeowner can be fined for leaving Christmas decorations up too long.
The maximum is $50.