Ah, remember those heady days in 2007, when the Mercury and dozens of our closest friends canvassed the Rose Festival parade route, ripping up duct tape?

Our Civic Clean Up project resulted in an actual city law banning duct tape (or paint or chalk or lawn chairs) as spot-saver. This year, you can only use your butt to save your spot, and you can only start saving 24 hours in advance (or, 10 am on Friday, June 6 for the Saturday morning parade).

Over at Metblogs, dieselboi walked part of the parade route yesterday, and spotted this:

dieselboi writes:

The good news is that people who normally were taping and reserving spots almost 2 weeks before the parade got the message. The bad news is that today, someone used spraypaint to reserve their spot.

He wonders if the cops will be out enforcing the new ban and handing out tickets. Here’s what I know, after speaking with Ross Turkus from the city’s Bureau of Development Services (which oversees the new regulation): Starting the Tuesday before the parade—so, next week—the city will be sending out a few inspectors (known as the “Parade Marking Removal Street Team”) to walk the parade route, educate people about the new rules, and pull up duct tape.

So there you have it. Hopefully the Parade Marking Removal Street Team will have paint clean up supplies on hand, to rub out the “Tower” spot. (Hopefully, they’ll also have fancy uniforms that say “Parade Marking Removal Street Team.”)