Town’s Honorary Dog Mayor Endorses Early Christmas Lights, Citing ‘Bone-Shaped Bulb’ Loophole

Biscuit, the town’s honorary dog mayor, issued an official endorsement Tuesday of early Christmas light displays, citing what his office called “the bone-shaped bulb loophole” in the municipal decoration ordinance.

“The ordinance restricts premature deployment of traditional holiday lighting,” said Biscuit’s chief of staff — and owner — Karen Delgado, reading from a statement while Biscuit, a 6-year-old golden retriever, napped on a rug embroidered with the town seal. “However, Section 8.2 defines ‘holiday lighting’ as bulbs in traditional seasonal shapes: stars, snowflakes, icicles, and reindeer. It says nothing about bones. A bone-shaped bulb is, legally speaking, just a bone that glows.”

The endorsement has electrified the early-decoration community. Within hours of Biscuit’s announcement, the local hardware store reported selling out of its entire stock of bone-shaped novelty bulbs — 400 strands — to residents eager to light up under the loophole. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said store manager Pete Kowalski. “People were buying them by the armful. One woman bought 60 strands and said, ‘The dog mayor says it’s fine.’ I didn’t argue. You don’t argue with the dog mayor.”

Not everyone is pleased. Holiday Decoration Oversight Panel chair Geraldine Mott called the loophole “a flagrant end-run around the tinsel moratorium’s spirit, if not its letter.” Mott confirmed the panel will hold an emergency session Friday to consider closing the loophole, a move Delgado preemptively criticized. “Biscuit’s position is that joy should not require a variance,” Delgado said, as Biscuit rolled onto his back. “Also, he would like everyone to know the glowing bones are very pretty and he is not sorry.”

Legal scholars are divided. “It’s a genuinely novel reading,” said Professor Alan Weiss of the state university’s municipal law clinic. “The drafters never contemplated bone-shaped bulbs because, frankly, who would? But the text is the text. Until the panel amends the ordinance, every glowing bone in this town is fully compliant.”

The hardware store’s restock of bone-shaped bulbs — 1,000 additional strands — sold out in six hours, prompting manager Pete Kowalski to place what he called “the largest novelty-bulb order in county history.” Biscuit’s approval rating, measured by the town’s annual “How’s the Mayor Doing?” survey of dog-park attendees, stands at 100 percent, with the remaining respondents marking “Who’s a good boy?” instead of answering. “We counted those as approvals,” Delgado said. “They’re approvals.”

Biscuit, elected honorary mayor in 2023 with 78 percent of the vote in a three-way race against a cat and a write-in Roomba, has maintained a 100 percent approval rating. His office confirmed he will flip the switch on the town’s official — and fully code-compliant — holiday display on December 1st, “using his nose, as is tradition.”