Snowzilla’s neighbors annoyed

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Snowzilla may be a smash hit with shutterbugs, but the towering snowman has detractors closer to its Anchorage home.

Some neighbors of the two-story high snowman say they’re fed up with the hordes of gawkers clogging up Columbine Street.

“When you get 20 people out there in their cars, now the whole street comes to a stop and nobody can get through,” said Anthony Bahler, who can see Snowzilla from his front window. “They just stand out there, in the middle of road, talking about a snowman.”

Bahler’s neighbor, Billy Powers, supervised construction of the original Snowzilla last year. Through the Internet, it became a media sensation, drawing crowds of visitors and TV crews from Japan and Russia before it melted in the spring.

This year, with the help from neighbors, Powers resurrected the snowman, with its giant hat made from tomato cages, corncob pipe and beer-bottle eyes. At 22 feet, Snowzilla is even more supersized, six feet taller than its predecessor.

Once again, traffic is streaming through the neighborhood.

“Everybody likes it,” Powers said. “That’s the reason I do it, really, I like the smiling faces.”

But the crowds, including rowdy late-nighters fresh from the bars, have started grating on Bahler and other neighbors.

Mike Schmitz, whose family lives next door to Bahler, doesn’t mind Snowzilla in theory, but can’t stand the traffic.

“I don’t dare let my kids go out front,” he said. “I don’t want them to get hit by a car.”

He would like it better if Snowzilla were somewhere else.

“If it’s such a public thing, you’d think the community could get together and find a place to do it,” he said.

Even some of Snowzilla’s fans understand the frustration.

Karla Beller, who lives in the Anchorage suburb of Chugiak, idled her minivan with her 3-year-old twins inside. She snapped a few photos with her cell phone.

“I think it’s great,” she said. “But traffic-wise, I probably wouldn’t want it on my block.”