All he was trying to do was bring home a baby bumble bee.
Won’t the aldermen be so proud of him?
Well – may-bee.
At an Evanston Human Services Committee meeting Monday night, aldermen bumbled around for a time before deciding to postpone a decision on whether to ban beekeeping in the city.
A 14-year-old beekeeper backed by a petition buzzing with a swarm of signatures spoke at the meeting to support his right to keep the insects.
Aldermen decided they didn’t have enough information to make a decision.
But really, beekeeping. How many beekeepers are there in Evanston? That our lawmakers even considered this at all is, frankly, un-bee-lievable.
Then again, welcome to Evanston, a veritable hive of ridiculous regulations. Comb through the Evanston city code and you’ll find ordinances that should have been swatted down before ever seeing a vote.
Did you know you can’t spit on sidewalks here? Or hold a seance? And here’s one that applies to your everyday life – you can’t give away vertebrate animals as part of a business deal (jellyfish are apparently OK).
Our fine city seems to have a bee in its bonnet about weird laws – we’ve passed a few that should have seen a buzz cut before hitting the ink.
But I’m not going to wax poetic against our queen (and king) bees too much. Because of course, aldermen don’t come up with most of these issues on their own – no, Evanston’s worker bees bring these pieces of sweet nectar to them.
Groups of activists here make themselves busy bees by sticking their proboscises in other people’s beeswax, and it’s rare to find a time when some group of citizens isn’t abuzz about something in this town.
This is a city where the vaccination of elm trees pollinated the Evanston City Council’s agendas for the better part of a year. Where neighbors come out of the woodwork to protest every new proposed condominium. Where a former Evanston/Skokie School District 65 school board president decided not to seek another term in office after an African-centered curriculum pilot program exploded into controversy.
If that hasn’t convinced you: This is a city where groups of residents have worked to convince aldermen that the Civic Center, where the aldermen meet, is worth saving even though scaffolding was put up to save people entering the building from pieces of the roof tumbling down on top of them.
That is just the bee’s knees.
In short, Evanston has seen it all. Aldermen have listened to more than their fair share of activists droning on, and one more ridiculous law will be just another drop in the bucket of honey.
So before you make a beeline to your telephone to call and bee-rate your alderman or bee-little your fellow citizens for asking the eternal question about bee-keeping – to bee or not to bee, of course – be aware that nothing you can say or do will really sting. In Evanston, we’ve bee-n there, done that.
The Daily’s Elizabeth Gibson contributed to this column.
Lee S. Ettleman is a Medill sophomore. He can be reached at [email protected].
