The city made him hide his boat — so he had its image painted on his fence

California man gets mad, then he gets even

When the city of Seaside, Calif., ordered resident Etienne Constable to build a fence to cover the boat parked in his driveway, he complied. But the puckish way he did it — hiring his artist neighbour to paint a realistic mural of the boat on his fence — has brought him viral attention.

“We kind of hit the sweet spot between following the rules and making an elegant statement to the contrary,” says Constable.

Constable, who works in business development, has lived in the same house in Seaside for 29 years. For most of that time, his boat trailer — often with a boat attached — has sat in his driveway without issue. But in July 2023, he received a letter from the city, asserting that the municipal code requires that boats and trailers be “screened on the side and front by a six-foot-high fence,” and threatening him with a citation and a $100 fine if he failed to comply.

To Constable, the letter came out of nowhere. He hadn't heard any complaints from neighbours, and he's kept the boat, which he named Might as Well and uses to fish “as often as I can,” for four years in his driveway.

“I thought, `This is ridiculous,' and my first reaction was to leave a nasty, nasty message at the city hall,” he says. “And then I thought, well, I might as well build a screen … I'll do what they want, but I'm not going to do it their way.”

That's when he had a chat with his neighbour, Hanif Panni, a muralist and graphic artist. The two batted ideas back and forth over the fence that separated their yards. “We wanted to make an illusion,” says Panni.

Panni shared the finished work on social media. It quickly went viral.

“One of the reasons why I do public art, and art in general, is to inspire those conversations,” the artist said.

There's one dialogue that hasn't happened yet. Constable hasn't heard anything from Seaside about the mural. But Constable is pretty sure they're aware of the street-facing painting: “It's not like I'm hiding anything.”