I have a friend who lives along the Gulf Coast. Visiting her a few years ago, I heard her proclaim several times over the course of the week: “If it’s snowbird season, is it okay for us to shoot them?” If you aren’t familiar with the term, a “snowbird” is a person who lives elsewhere in the continental United States but travels to the Gulf during the winter to enjoy the balmy temperatures. My friend, like so many yearlong residents—I know this because she told me, repeatedly—doesn’t like these visitors. “We don’t like tourists around these parts,” she said. What I WANTED to say, but didn’t, was: “STFU. Your entire economy down here depends on tourist money, and you sure like that well enough, don’t you?”
Whitby, England has the same problem as my friend. They get LOTS of tourists, Dracula fanboys and girls. Concerned that these tourists aren’t treating the graveyard at Whitby Abbey with the proper respect, some locals have put forward the idea that a mock graveyard should be built for tourist use. Stupid idea. It wouldn’t be the same. Howzabout you take the money you’d spend building this fake graveyard and just hire attendants to watch the REAL Whitby graveyard, to make sure no vandalism or anything untoward occurs? I’m betting the latter would be much cheaper in the long run.