John Waters' beloved muse, the late great Divine, chewed up the scenery in many a feature film, but none so notoriously as in the final sequence of "Pink Flamingos." Let’s just say Waters was a master of indecorous cinematography before anyone knew the genre existed.
The ersatz rose-colored birds that dotted the lawn of the movie’s main characters have since joined the ranks of Baltimore kitsch along with blue crabs, Nipper the RCA dog, Formstone, and Natty Boh. So when Café Hon, ground zero of the annual HonFest, erected a 30-feet high pink flamingo sculpture outside the restaurant as part of a holiday display, no one so much as batted an eye.
That is until now.
Never mind that the gigantic chicken wire and bed sheet resin concoction has served as a beacon of Bawlmer for the past seven years. Or that it recently appeared in a New York Times article touting Baltimore tourist attractions. According to WBAL news, an inspector in the city’s Department of General Services recently decided the bird is nesting illegally, rationalizing “the sculpture projects into the public right of way and is subject to a minor privilege permit.”
In other words, Café Hon can either pay an annual fee or dismantle the Charm City icon, a choice about as appealing as listening to Police Commissioner Bealefeld sing “I’m Every Woman.”
I’m all for City Hall developing new streams of income, but catching Café Hon’s pink flamingo in its bureaucratic crosshairs is rather unsportsmanlike, even for the City of Baltimore. The public right away didn’t appear out of nowhere and the bird has been moored to the same fire escape for the past seven years. If it didn’t impact upon public enjoyment or safety during all that time, then it shouldn’t make a difference now.
Next time city officials want to fashion an infraction out of whole cloth they should begin with a better lining.
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