New Pie-Cooling Ordinance Bans Windowsill Pies After Three Raccoon Incidents on Elm Street

CRUSTVILLE — The Town Council passed the Pie-Cooling Ordinance 6–1 on Monday, banning the cooling of pies on open windowsills following three raccoon incidents on Elm Street, the most recent involving a lattice-top apple pie, a torn screen, and what animal control described as “a raccoon of unusual determination.”

Under the ordinance, pies must cool indoors, on a covered porch, or in a “raccoon-resistant cooling apparatus” — defined as any enclosure the town’s animal control officer cannot open within 90 seconds. Windowsill cooling is permitted only with a locked screen and a posted “PIE PRESENT” warning sign, available free at Town Hall.

“We love the tradition. Nothing says autumn like a pie in a window,” said Councilman Ray Dutton, the lone dissenter, who argued the ordinance “criminalizes nostalgia.” But animal control officer Tina Vasquez presented photos of the Elm Street incidents, including one image of a raccoon “sitting upright, holding pie, making eye contact with the homeowner like it paid rent.” The council chamber fell silent.

The ordinance also covers “attractive pie-adjacent aromas” wafting from open kitchen windows, though Vasquez admitted that provision is “more of a strong suggestion with a form number.” Repeat offenders face a $75 fine and mandatory attendance at “Raccoons: They Can Smell Your Crust,” a 20-minute presentation Vasquez gives at the library each November.

Elm Street resident and pie victim Marjorie Lindt has complied, installing a locking pie safe on her porch. “The raccoon came back Tuesday,” she reported. “It looked at the safe. It looked at me. I swear it nodded, like ‘fair enough.’ We have an understanding now.”

Vasquez’s library presentation, “Raccoons: They Can Smell Your Crust,” has become a standing-room event — 80 attendees last November, with a waiting list. The 20-minute talk covers raccoon dexterity (“they can open anything short of a safe, and frankly the safes worry me”), the Elm Street photo series, and a live demonstration in which Vasquez opens a “raccoon-resistant” latch in 34 seconds. “The point isn’t that your enclosure is perfect,” she said. “The point is that it takes longer than 90 seconds, because a raccoon’s attention span is 90 seconds. Probably. We’re still studying that.”

The ordinance has sparked a minor boom in locking pie safes — the hardware store sold out twice — and Lindt’s porch safe has become something of a neighborhood landmark. “Kids ask to see it,” she said. “I show them the lock, I tell them about the raccoon, I give them a cookie. It’s educational.” The raccoon, for its part, has moved on to what Vasquez called “jack-o’-lanterns with structural weaknesses,” a problem she said is “October’s business, and October can keep it.”