Woman's potted potties upset Lakemoor residents
By DIANA SROKA - dsroka@nwherald.com
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| Tina Asmus has been at the center of controversy in her Lakemoor neighborhood for displaying planters made out of recycled toilets in her front yard. (Sandy Bressner – sbressner@nwherald.com) |
LAKEMOOR – Tina Asmus’ garden is filled with daisies, petunias, hostas and other bright summer flowers. She’s posted signs in the soil that read, “Have a Nice Day!” and “God Bless My Neighbors.”
Some of her neighbors aren’t too happy about the display, however, because this is not a typical garden. Forget pots; when Asmus flexes her green thumb, she plants flowers in old toilets to display in her front yard.
“At the end of the day, how many people drive by and get a little chuckle?” said Asmus, a wife and mother of two. “When it blooms, it will be massive color.”
But some neighbors hope that the flowers don’t last long. They’ve filed complaints with the village, and Asmus, who lives at 134 S. Highland Drive, was warned that she was in violation of an ordinance for keeping the toilets out front.
She has 30 days from May 29 to remove them or she’ll be fined between $25 and $500.
“The only thing I can do is enforce the ordinance,” Lakemoor President Todd Weihofen said.
He said Asmus was violating an ordinance under the category “Public Nuisances Affecting Peace and Safety,” which addresses “equipment and personal property of any kind which is no longer safely usable for the purpose for which it was manufactured.”
Asmus said the sentence sounded like it was supposed to pertain to junk cars, not lawn decorations.
“Basically they had nothing else to apply to me so they applied that,” she said. Some neighbors complained last year, but the toilets were dismissed as “art,” Asmus said.
But that might have been because Weihofen’s predecessor didn’t enforce village ordinances, said Weihofen, who in May took the office previously occupied by Virginia Povidas.
“We’re trying to enforce them now,” he said.
Asmus and others accused of violating ordinances are being granted a 30-day warning period before they are fined, Weihofen said.
That doesn’t matter to Asmus, however. She said she wouldn’t take down the two toilets and freestanding sink in which she planted her summer garden.
“I’m leaving them,” she said. “I guess we have another monthly bill.”
The law
The following is prohibited in Lakemoor under an ordinance listed as "Public Nuisances Affecting Peace and Safety":
All unsheltered storage of old, unused, stripped, junked, and other automobiles not in good and safe operating condition, and of any other vehicles, machinery, implements, and/or equipment and personal property of any kind which is no longer safely usable for the purpose for which it was manufactured, within the corporate limits of this village.
Source: Village of Lakemoor
