In a unanimous decision today, the Wallingford Community Council voted no on allowing egg hunts in any of their aspirational historic district’s backyards for Easter this year.
“I’m not opposed to Easter egg hunts—I just think they’d make more sense in a different neighborhood,” said Council President Gretchen Tolliver, who inherited a craftsman cottage on Burke Avenue. “People are always asking you to hide more than one egg in your backyard and then it’s just a slippery slope from there. Maybe an egg hunt is fine in Capitol Hill or Belltown, but we’re officially drawing a redline on having them here anymore.”
While many local children were upset by the news, many Wallingford homeowners were happy to see the events cancelled even if they must go through the hardship of now being called a “NEHIMBYs” – a classist slur that stands for “No Egg Hunts In My Back Yard.”
“These egg hunts just bring the wrong sort of people into the neighborhood,” said homeowner Todd Wetzel, squinting his eyes at a suspicious five-year-old riding past his yard on a red tricycle. “The historic character of the neighborhood is single-family homes with gardens, not people looking for a handout. Frankly, these things bring the wrong sort of people to the neighborhood: People who are loud, young, and joyous. And they’re almost never as into calling the police on a car that’s been parked on the street for more than three days as I am.”
At press time, an opposing coalition of YEHIMBYs announced it has already mapped out a multi-family neighborhood-wide egg hunt in protest.
