A 9-year-old boy has successfully convinced a small Colorado town to overturn a city ordinance that bans throwing snowballs in the city limits.
The Greeley Tribune reports that Dane Best successfully petitioned the Severance, Colorado town board to overturn the ruling that is almost a century old.
The law that banned throwing snowballs is part of a larger ordinance that initially made it illegal to "throw or shoot stones or missiles at people, animals, buildings, trees, any other public or private property or vehicles," Kyle Rietkerk, the assistant to the Severance town administrator, told the Tribune.
While the snowball portion of the law was not enforced, Best still wanted to petition for a change, calling the law "outdated" during Monday's town board meeting.
"I want to be able to throw a snowball without getting in trouble," Best said, also telling the board that his first target will be his 4-year-old brother Dax.
Given that Severance averages 43 inches of snowfall a year, Best should have plenty of opportunities following the board's unanimous vote to allow snowballs to be thrown in the town.
Best's mother, Brooke Best, told the Tribune that Dane had been talking about snowballs for a month and a half — ever since he learned about the town's law.
"All of the kids always get blown away that it's illegal to have snowball fights in Severance. So, what ends up happening is they always encourage the kids with, 'You have the power you can change the law.' No one has," Rietkerk said.
At least until now.
"We didn't know that, at his age, he could even have a voice in the community," Brooke said. "So that's been pretty cool."
Dane also got his classmates involved in changing the law, with the kids starting a letter writing campaign.
The Best family also researched other local laws and stumbled across another ordinance that defines a pet as only a dog or cat. Since Dane has a guinea pig, it's possible that he could make a return trip to petition the town board again.
However, the next time it snows in Severance, Dane and his friends will be able to legally throw snowballs as the law went into immediate effect.
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