File this one away in the Elections Matter Department.
Just ask the good citizens of Hudson, Ohio who wanted a permit for ice fishing in a public park.
The mayor, however, had other thoughts about this frozen past time: he said issuing a permit that would allow ice shanty’s (what Ohioans apparently call fish houses) for ice fishing, well, here’s what he said: “And if you then allow ice fishing with shanties, then that leads to another problem – prostitution.”
He backed up this controversial statement by saying that he based this argument on “data points” which, unfortunately, he hasn’t shared with his fellow members of the Hudson city council.
Ohio reporters with Fox 8 then fact-checked these claims and asked multiple law-enforcement officials in the state if they had ever dealt with a situation involving acts of prostitution in ice fishing shanties. Officials in Ottawa, Eire, Ashtabula, and Geauga counties all responded that they have never received any calls or reports about that type of crime, and had never heard of such a thing taking place during their time in law enforcement.
“I don’t think an ice fishing hut would be ideal for that type of activity,” Geauga County Sheriff Scott Hildenbrand told the local news outlet. “We’ve never had that problem.”
As you count down the days to Minnesota’s 2022 fishing opener next month, check out this story here.