Man's hilarious troll after city's petty order to hide his boat from wealthy neighbors: 'I'll do what they want, but not their way'

A California homeowner who was ordered to hide his boat from view of this wealthy neighbors has hilariously trolled city officials with an act of malicious compliance.

Seaside resident Etienne Constable was told he needed to erect a cover to obscure the vessel or he would face an $100 fine back in July 2023.

Municipal codes state that, 'boats and large pickup campers, motor homes, recreation vehicles, utility trailers, and vacation trailers' can only be parked on driveways if, 'screened on the side and front by a six-foot-high fence'.

The homeowner acquiesced, but put his own tongue-in-cheek spin on it by painting a photo realistic mural of the boat on the front of the screen.

'I'm not a rule-breaker but I like to make a political statement as necessary as well as a humorous statement and a creative statement,' Constable told KSBW.

Constable explained he frequently uses his boat Might as Well to go fishing and has kept it parked in the driveway for four years before every receiving any complaint. 

'I thought, "This is ridiculous," and my first reaction was to leave a nasty, nasty message at the city hall,' he added in an interview with the Washington Post.

'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.' 

Images of the artwork, done by Constable's neighbor Hanif Panni, soon went viral much to Constable's surprise.

 'The reaction is extremely more than we ever expected and we're both just tickled about it,' he said.

Constable said the fence cost a few hundreds dollars to erect himself and he then paid Panni for his skills. 

Panni, who has murals across the central coast, said he saw the painting as an opportunity to stoke debate on what constitutes art.

'I'm a big proponent of public art in spaces,' Panni said. 'It engages people in ways that reaching out and having conversations doesn't sometimes.' 

 The artist has since been inundated with requests from other neighbors to paint similar murals at their properties. 

Constable confirmed he has not heard anything from Seaside officials but he assumes they are aware.

'It’s not like I’m hiding anything,' he added.