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Randolph bans
bunny suits
Like most people, you probably
often ask yourself: “What, exactly, are
my legal rights if I am wearing a bunny
outfit?”
The answer, you will be relieved lo
learn, is: “It depends.”
To understand why this is, let us first
consider a 22-page legal decision filed
in October by U.S. District Judge
David G. Larimer and sent to me by
alert attorney James G. Vazzana of
Rochester, N.Y. Here, according to
Judge Larimer’s decision, are the Facts
of the Case (and I want to stress that I
am not making ANY of this up):
On April 23, 1992, Timothy Wagner
and John Payment were traveling on
holiday through western New York
state. They stopped their van in a
Cattaraugus County town called
Randolph to eat breakfast, and they
noticed a little girl in the restaurant.
This, according to Judge Larimer, gave
them an idea:
“The men decided it would be a treat
for the girl if one of them went to the
van, put on the ‘Easter Bunny’ mask
and walked the window of the
restaurant to surprise the girl.”
It seems that Wagner and Payment
were traveling with (Why not?) a large
papier-mache bunny head. Each time
they entered a new county,'
would put on the bunny he;
and pose for a photograi
next to the county sign
the roadside (Judge Larim*
notes that “They also had >
seven-foot stuffed dog in the
van which apparently al:
posed for some of thet
roadside pictures.”).
So Payment got the bunn;
head out of the van, put it 01
and waved into the restaurant
window until the little girl saw him.
Then he put the bunny head away and
went back to finish his breakfast.
In some towns, Wagner and
Payment might have gotten away with
this. But Randolph is not “some
town.” Several alert citizens observed
the Easter Bunny; they thought that it
might have been looking into the
windows of local banks. So a bank
employee called the Cattaraugus
County Sheriff’s Department, which
Like most people,
you probably often
ask yourself:
"What, exactly,
are my legal rights
if I am wearing a
bunny outfit?"
sent two officers to Randolph to
investigate.
By then Wagner and Payment had
left town, but one of the officers, Lt.
Ernie Travis, was able to trace
Wagner’s van from its license plate; he
learned that Wagner had a criminal
conviction (which later turned out to be
related to income-tax-evasion charges).
Only in New York
So here is the situation;
1. Two strangers had been hanging
around Randolph, and one of them had
been wearing a bunny head in a
possibly suspicious manner.
2. One of the men had been
convicted of something.
3. There were banks around
Lt. Travis, according to a deposition
he gave later, as summarized by Judge
Larimer, concluded that “the men were
bank robbers.” So he issued an All
Points Bulletin to apprehend the
suspects, who were described as
“armed and dangerous.”
Wagner and Payment were arrested at
gunpoint by state police, handcuffed,
and returned to Cattaraugus County.
There the bank-robbery case against
them - which up to that point probably
looked airtight - began to fall apart.
For one thing, as Judge Larimer noted
in his decision, no actual bank had
been robbed. Also, Payment and
Wagner did not flee, and they were not
armed (unless you count the stuffed
dog). Also, as the judge pointed out,
robbers casing a bank probably would
not wear a two-foot-high bunny head
featuring “enormous pink ears.”
“Generally,” observed the judge,
“stealth is preferred when engaging in
o after a couple of
irs in custody, Wagner
I Payment were
:ased, and everybody
i a good laugh, and then
igner and Payment sued
$2.1 million. Judge
\mer ruled that Lt.
ivis acted improperly,
a jury will determine
at the damages are.
This case reaffirms our
fundamental right - not specifically
mentioned in the Constitution, but
clearly on the minds of the Founding
Fathers - to look into bank windows
while wearing bunny outfits. But that
does not mean that we have carte
blanche (literally, “hors d’oeuvres") to
do whatever we wish. I have here a
Nov. 3 Los Angeles Times story sent
in by alert reader Cathy Perlmutter,
concerning a 35-year-old, 225-pound
man who dressed as a “Samurai
Bunny” for Halloween, meaning that
he carried a wooden sword and had (I
am still not making any of this up) “a
stuffed bunny on his head.” This man
was arrested on suspicion of assault
after he allegedly almost wacked off
another man’s ear with his sword when
the man asked if he wasn’t too old to
be trick-or-treating.
So we see from these two cases that
there is a “fine line” between legal and
illegal bunny-outfit conduct, and the
distinctions become even more blurred
when we enter the arena of wearing
giant chicken heads or - this can be a
legal nightmare - two-person horse
suits. So in this or any other legal
matter, I strongly recommend that
before you do anything, you pay a
qualified attorney to give you advice
that neither you nor he really
understands. And make darned sure
you register your stuffed dog.
by Dave Barry
syndicated columnist
Op/Ed
I never would have expected to be
sitting in a room in Niagara Hall on
a Tuesday evening holding a deep
and diverse conversation with
people I had just met, except for my
significant other and one or two of
his buddies, regarding various
current issues of everyday life.
The issues I have chosen as
ingredients for a great big cauldron
of stone soup in the form of a
column for you to read, digest and
possibly spit up later, may be
attributed to the topics touched upon
during the discussion in Niagara
Hall
The recipe is as follows:
4 quarts water
1 bag frozen mixed
conservatives
3 cups NCAA
3 tablespoons
national lottery
tickets
4 cups college course
requirements
2 cups increased
speed limit
1 quart O.J. (orange
juice that is)
1 lb. Pittsburgh
Steelers
3 cups parking spaces
1. Fill a large pot with 4 quarts
water. Bring to rapid boil adding
dash of salt. Dump bag of frozen
mixed conservatives into boiling
water, stirring thoroughly. Cover
with lid. Simmer until
conservatives lighten up and are no
longer as anal retentive. Once their
views are no longer comparable to a
horse drawn by the Amish
population, remove lid.
2. Take 3 cups NCAA women
basketball players and slowly add to
pot. Stir occasionally until
regulations no longer hand women
in sports the shaft with no where to
go to continue executing their skills
after college years. When the rules
include women in programs
comparable to the National
Stir occasionally until
regulations no longer
hand women in sports
the shaft with no where
to go to continue
executing their skills
after college years.
Basketball Association (for men
only), replace lid and continue to
simmer at low heat
3. Add 3 tablespoons national
lottery tickets. Continue to stir
mixture and wait for our national
government to take this ingredient
into consideration. (Note that the
Stone
Soup
Thursday, January 26,1995
sale of tickets would complement
the rest of the mixture for the stone
soup as columnist and seven-time
Pulitzer nominee Mr. Dale Van Atta
spoke in Reed Lecture Hall on
Tuesday evening. He discussed the
fact that the U.S. government has
no so=called trust fund, and that it
spends our tax dollars on ridiculous
issues including one amounting to
$1,000,000 spent on a program to
teach folks in Utah how to safely
cross the street. Also, we paid
$lOO,OOO on a study to determine
why some people don’t like beets,
and $57,800 on a study of
body measurements of
airline stewardesses.)
4. Add 4 cups college
credits required for
graduation for any and all
majors on campus. This
will appear to cause the
soup to overflow. In
order to avoid this, strain
classes to separate the
relevant from the
irrelevant.
ites for the irrelevant course
load include Music 005, Art History
111, some of the ESACT classes,
etc. These have littlfe nutritional
value now, as plenty were provided
during high school years. Unless
courses like Political Science 001 is
mandated (which would teach
students about their government and
its procedures thus dispersing new
and worthwhile information) and
left behind in the colander, allowing
courses to go down the drain.
5. Turn heat to high; add 2 cups
increased speed limit for
Pennsylvania. Let boil for five
minutes, stirring occasionally.
Candidates for the
irrelevant course load
.. have little nutritional
value now, as plenty
were provided during
high school years.
6. Pour 1 quart O.J. into rapidly
boiling mixture. Stir briskly until
O.J. can no longer be seen.
Money, time and energy spent here
is wasted on a mentally challenged
celebrity.
7. Carefully add 1 lb. Pittsburgh
Steelers to soup. This pot will have
to suffice since the team couldn’t
make it to the other “super bowl.”
8. Add 3 cups parking spaces
while pouring through strainer.
This will prevent freshmen from
parking on campus.
Cook conglomeration for at least
t\yo. hours. Goes well with
anything made in the U.S.A.
Serves about 23.
-by Laura Borawski
Bth semester / Communication Major