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A man in California is being championed as a hero by millions after his story has gone viral. Etienne Constable from Seaside, California on Monterey Bay was ordered by the city to remove his boat from street view so neighbors and passersby wouldn’t see the cabin cruiser fishing boat.
Constable learned about the city’s demand for him to hide his boat when a letter arrived last July. He told KSBW in Monterey that he typically has no problems following rules but he likes “to make a political statement as necessary as well as a humorous statement and a creative statement.”
Etienne Constable acquiesced to the city’s decision to make him hide his boat from street view but didn’t do it without exacting some petty revenge. Instead of just putting it behind the 6-foot fence in his driveway, which he did by the way, he tucked the boat away but then had a realistic mural of his boat painted on the fence to create a facade of the boat still being there but while following the letter of the law set out by the cruel city of Seaside.
Images of his fence with the boat mural have gone viral. I think I’ve already included two of them in my daily meme roundup here on BroBible. Last week people were convinced it was the HOA who asked him to take it down but word has gotten out that it was the city of Seaside and the story has been picked up by countless media outlets and posted to Reddit where everyone cheers his pluckiness with the mural when the city came down on him.
The boat was there in his driveway for 4 years before the city of Seaside pushed back. Now Etienne is getting the last laugh.
In response to the mural going viral, Etienne Constable couldn’t be happier. He told KSBW “I’m all in favor of generating a discussion and making people smile,. The reaction is extremely more than we ever expected and we’re both just tickled about it.”
The artist behind the mural, Hanif Panni, is also overjoyed with the response. He says “I’m a big proponent of public art in spaces. It engages people in ways that reaching out and having conversations doesn’t sometimes.” And according to KSWB, the artist has already been contacted by other residents in the area seeking boat murals of their own.