Phil, an accountant and HOA president in Plano, spent eleven weeks researching zoning ordinances before submitting a seventeen-page proposal to the city requesting his front yard be reclassified as a “Community Beautification District” — a designation that does not exist — to gain authority over a neighbor’s garden gnome in a sombrero he calls “thematically inconsistent.”
The city said no. Phil appealed. The roses bloomed last week. The gnome has not moved. Phil now eats breakfast in the living room so he doesn’t have to see it.