Tikis are tree mutilation...

http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/localstoryN0520TIKI.htm

I was wondering what the deal was with these half-carved tikis in the middle of town- kinda seemed stupid as the live palm obviously died right after being carved.. oh well- wouldve been neat to have the tikis, but they probably should just mounted some on the ground in between each palm.. right now it stands with two palms carved and one 1/3 carved.. kinda like a guy who dies writing in his journallllllllahahklk;l ;l;

May 19, 11:27 PM

Tikis are tree mutilation, city says

Business must replace palms

BY JEFF SCHWEERS
FLORIDA TODAY

MELBOURNE -- The tiki heads carved into the palm trees in front of the Car Cabana add a touch of the exotic to the used-car lot at New Haven Avenue and Babcock Street.

Cocoa Beach artist Wayne Coombs carved two tiki heads into the trees as a favor to Car Cabana owner Don Coffman. But city inspectors stopped Coombs from finishing a third head.

They said the recent additions, which stand like exclamation points along the sidewalk in front of the car lot, are a code violation and have to go.

They cited Coffman for causing "irreparable or irreplaceable damage" to a live tree, said Dan Porsi, Melbourne's code compliance director.

"First thing is for the health of the tree. Second would be a safety issue. Third . . . you're getting into the aesthetics when you start mutilating a tree," Porsi said.

Coombs, who's made a living out of carving tiki heads for the last 30 years, said the code violates freedom of expression. And if someone wants a face carved on his tree, that should be his right.

"The irreparable damage (Porsi) was talking about, we call art," Coombs said.

Coffman must replace the carved trees with healthy trees of the same height, Porsi said. Or Coffman could take his case to the code enforcement board.

Coffman said he'll do whatever the city wants him to do.

"I'm not gonna fight with the city," Coffman said. "I'm just going to stay here and sell cars."

Last year a carver (maybe Tiki Tom) carved two huge tikis in living palm trees in Carlsbad. They look cool and the trees are still alive. I'll try to take pictures. Are you sure the trees died?
Mahalo,
Al

well, one of them is definitely dead.. its possible it already was dead, but I seem to remember it wasn't.

The other fully carved one looked like it was getting dead. These are cabbage palms, which are pretty damn ugly as it is and look dead-ish even when they are alive anyway.

The one that is only 1/3 carved seems to still be alive.

The silly thing is those palms werent even there before the place was turned into a car lot- they owner had them put in- then he gets fined for "harming a live plant" I mean he BOUGHT and PLANTED that thing

but then again, if i had bought and planted three palms, I wouldnt think that carving out a live palm would work either. I'm actually suprised the carver didn't think it would kill the palm.. maybe he's pulled it off in the past.

Either way i think I would have just opted for a regular tiki mounted between the living palms

[ Edited by: fatuhiva on 2004-05-20 09:13 ]

That is absurd! You can't harm a tree that you bought?! So if I go to Home Depot and buy 200 pine trees, plant them and then decide to cut them all down would I be tried as a serial killer? This world has gone insane - it's a tree for god's sake!!

On 2004-05-20 12:49, johntiki wrote:
So if I go to Home Depot and buy 200 pine trees, plant them and then decide to cut them all down would I be tried as a serial killer?

Only if you wore a clown suit and buried them in your crawlspace. Now shooting oil cans is a different story...

Tacky Techie Tiki Bar
It just may be that the only purpose to your life is to serve as a warning to others.

[ Edited by: Turbogod on 2004-05-20 13:01 ]

On 2004-05-20 12:49, johntiki wrote:
That is absurd! You can't harm a tree that you bought?! So if I go to Home Depot and buy 200 pine trees, plant them and then decide to cut them all down would I be tried as a serial killer?

I have a feeling that if you lived in other parts of Maryland (Takoma Park or Montgomery County), you'd be fined. Hell, in Takoma Park, they'd probably send out a lynch mob if you did that! :wink:

Among the many carvers' stories I heard from Leroy at OA, there was one about a LA local who claimed he could carve "Live Tikis", which essentially meant carving Tikis into living trees and keeping them alive.
I seem to remember to have seen some carved faces in some trees on the Disneyland Jungle cruise in Adventureland.

On 2004-05-20 12:49, johntiki wrote:
That is absurd! You can't harm a tree that you bought?!

i brought you into this world, and i can take you out!

oh sorry flashback to childhood traumas.

dont the goverment officials of florida have better things to do than be Tree Police? hmm., mabye this is the work of PETA = Pinheads for Eradication of Tree Amputations.

did they arrest the carvers?

Usually, the narrow planting strip along the sidewalk is city property, and while the city will turn a blind eye and let you plant things there, what goes there is up to the city. That's what I know from being a property owner in Seattle -- your local mileage may vary.

That aside, even if there have been trees that have survived the process of having their outer bark layers removed, it's just like skin, and it ain't just there to look pretty. Plants need that layer as a protective barrier against disease, not to mention the structural support it provides, and that in many plants the main conduction of water to other parts of the plant lie just below this surface, kind of like veins & arteries. Yes, a tree might live through it, just like if you stripped a good chunk of skin off the legs of a person, he might live through it. But it is mutilation, and not to be done lightly.

I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying don't be surprised when the tree falls over and conks out some unsuspecting passer-by because the tree is dead and the roots have withered.

Humuhumu, breaking it down!

Is a tree still a tree after it is a tiki? Maybe the owner never intended for the trees to be actual, live thriving trees and only wanted big tikis.

However, I don't think chopping off the tiki immediately above the carving necessarily improves the tiki.

humu- i think you nailed it- theyre probably worried it will fall over.. like 1/2 of the trunk is carved away (and it would fall towards the busy street)

FOLLOW-UP ARTICLE:

Tiki-tree fiasco riles up readers

City still maintains code violation

BY JEFF SCHWEERS
FLORIDA TODAY

MELBOURNE -- Don Coffman's tiki heads are the talk of the town.

Some folks are upset that city officials are forcing him to get rid of the three palms bearing the hand-carved heads that stand in front of his Car Cabana used-car lot on New Haven Avenue. In response to a FLORIDA TODAY online question, 85 percent of 404 participants said the tiki heads should stay.

But city code enforcement officials told Coffman he violated the city's tree-protection ordinance, and the heads must go, as reported in Thursday's

newspaper.

Coffman must replace the hand-carved palms with unmolested live trees or face a $5,000 fine for each mutilated palm. City code prohibits doing anything that would cause irreversible harm to a tree.

"You've got to be kidding me," Bryan Henderson, a Brevard County resident, said in an e-mail to the newspaper. "You mean to tell me that our city inspectors have nothing better to do than complain about someone trying to spice up his business?"

Some say it's a sign of governmental regulation run amok. Others say it's a stifling of artistic expression.

And some argue that palms shouldn't be subjected to the city's tree-protection ordinance because, scientifically speaking, they're a type of grass.

"Palms are not trees," said Steve Hittner of FunDay Eco-Tours in Melbourne Beach, after calling the newspaper following Wednesday's article.

Flowering plants are broken into two categories: monocots and dicots, based on the number of cotyledons or "seed leaves" in the embryo. Trees are dicots; palms are monocots, and are more closely related to onions, lillies and orchids.

Satellite Beach resident Susan Price made that same point in her e-mail.

"There is no rhyme or reason that the sabal palm should be the Florida state 'tree'," she wrote. "Basically a palm is a grass. Hah . . . what would Code Enforcement have to say about that?"

As far as Code Enforcement is concerned, a palm by any other name is still a tree.

"The bottom line is, yes," said Dan Porsi, the city's top code enforcer.

Coffman planted the trees to meet city landscaping requirements. One of those requirements is that the palms have to be alive, Porsi said. One is already dead. The other two have a substantial chunk of trunk carved out and will probably die, too.

"We're saying basically they are destroyed," Porsi said.

Coffman said he'll replace the palms, but others think he should challenge the citation.

Tammy Perry of Melbourne said it's a matter of artistic expression and personal freedom. "Tiki trees are all over Brevard County, in businesses and in homes," she wrote, "which I feel brings a great sense of pride and atmosphere to our area."

Porsi said the ordinance is clear. It's meant to protect all trees in the city limits. Last April, it was amended to also protect scrub oaks for the scrub jay habitat.

Some readers said it was ironic that the city is protecting decorative landscaping when the city and county are letting developers clear-cut land.

In Melbourne, property owners must get a tree-removal permit before they can clear land, Porsi said. Residential single-family lots must pay up to $100. Commercial, multi-family and large subdivisions pay up to $1,000.

You don't need a permit to remove invasive non-native species like meleleuca, eucalyptus, Australian pines and Brazilian oaks, the code says.

Residential property owners have to plant four trees when building a house, but can remove them once they take possession of the property. They can even carve tiki heads into their own palms.

"You could -- if you choose to -- remove them and have no trees on your property," Porsi said. "We're not condoning that. But we let people do what they want on residential property."

Are the palms in little holes in the sidewalk? Is there room to plant new palms between the once-palms, now-Tikis? could he place new palms in concrete planters, or move the Tikis to concrete "planters?"

Code enforcement officials can be a bitch to deal with, but with public opinion on his side they may work with him on a solution that makes everyone happy.