ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Fair in Boulder closes down ‘Smallest Woman’ sideshow

LONGMONT, Colo.

A sideshow at the Boulder County Fair advertising “Little Liz, the World’s Smallest Woman” has been shut down after complaints.

The show featuring a woman from Haiti who’s 29 inches tall, or less than 2 Ω feet, closed recently after two parents complained, The Times-Call of Longmont reported.

“There was kind of an ‘ick factor’ to it,” said Carrie Haverfield of the Boulder County Commissioners’ Office. “When I talked to our open-space director and one of our county attorneys about it, we had the gut check of, ‘This is not the sort of use we want to encourage.’ ... We just didn’t feel it was appropriate to a family show.”

Traveling carnivals used to rely heavily on sideshows, including sword swallowers and fire eaters, but rides have largely replaced them as tastes changed and a number of areas made “freak shows” illegal.

In Colorado, the owner of the carnival at the Boulder County Fair said “Little Liz” and her husband play about 20 events a year with his carnival.

Maserati patrol car raises police officer’s suspicions

BRAINTREE, Mass

Police patrol cars are usually Fords or Chryslers, not Maseratis.

So when a patrolman in Braintree, Mass., spotted a Maserati resembling a police cruiser recently, he pulled it over.

Deputy Chief Wayne Foster told The Patriot Ledger that the luxury Italian vehicle’s body was painted black and white with a police-style shield on the doors, and police-related decals.

Foster said the door shield wasn’t accompanied by the usual police phrase “Protect and Serve,” but rather with “Decepticons punish and enslave.”

The driver told the officer who pulled him over that he was actually assisting police “because other drivers noticed him and slowed down, thinking it was a police vehicle.”

The driver, whose name was not made public, was summoned to court to face a charge of impersonating a police officer.

Westport burglar takes all but 1 cigarette brand

WESTPORT, Wash.

Detectives know something about the burglar who recently broke into a grocery store in Westport and took 50 bottles of alcohol and all the tobacco products except one brand of cigarette.

The burglar doesn’t care for Virginia Slims and left them behind.

KBKW reported that the loss for Ted’s Red Apple-Westport Market was about $5,000.

Associated Press