How’s a person supposed to get into the holiday spirit with Grinches running around putting the kibosh on warm, wonderful and glowing Christmas lights? Well in an Orange County suburb, those so-called meanies are worried not about the strands adorning a particular home, but the strings of lights stretching across neighborhood streets, potentially creating fire hazards and roadway traps for emergency vehicles.

The neighbors in the community see the lights stretching across their suburb’s streets as holiday happiness, but that festive glow is also an “unpermitted encroachment” according to county officials who have ordered them removed, reports the Los Angeles Times.

While there’s the normal amount of outrage from residents who love the zigzagging lights at being told they’ve got to take them down by tonight or face fines and even prosecution (“This is America,” said one), the county says it’s about public safety. Decorate your house in all the lights you want, but going house-to-house isn’t a good idea.

“We don’t have issues with any of the other lights,” a county spokeswoman. “We fully support that.”

Due to the uproar from residents, the county says it’s willing to work with the neighborhood to get a permit for street decorations and consider extending tonight’s deadline, as well as waiving permit fees. But it’s not going to be easy coordinating all those homeowners to come in and apply for one.

“It would be more ideal if the homeowners’ association came to the table and offered themselves as the single permittee,” said the county spokeswoman.

That’s a long shot as well, since the HOA’s president says it isn’t meeting again until next year.

“We want the holiday spirit,” he said. But “the association has zero involvement.”

Time to take matters into your own hands, Whoville. Get a permit or face the Grinch (albeit a Grinch concerned about the safety of people but you get it).

O.C. neighborhood ordered to take down Christmas lights [L.A. Times]

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