Wisconsin city weighs ending ban on snowball fights

A Wisconsin city is weighing ending a ban on snowball fights after getting national attention over the issue.

Wausau, Wis., outlaws throwing projectiles, including snowballs, in an ordinance that dates from 1962. But after negative press, the city council plans to consider changing the law next month, City Council President Lisa Rasmussen said, according to The Associated Press.

“Maybe it’s worth giving a look to see if that list could be amended, to mitigate that odd news story that keeps coming up like a bad penny,” Rasmussen said, adding that there is no cost to changing the language, Wisconsin Public Radio News reported.

The Wausau Police Department and Wausau Mayor Robert Mielke sought to correct the record in a video from earlier this month, showing the group participating in a snowball fight. 

In the video, Deputy Chief of Police Matt Barnes said in the video that the ordinance was enforced 10 times in the last 15 years, including when a person shot crossbows into a neighbor’s yard, when sandbags were dropped off the roof of a parking ramp and twice when snowballs were thrown at passing cars. 

The video closes with Barnes nailing the mayor in the head with a snowball.