A small town in rural Vermont has temporarily closed a road that frequently gets jammed by tourists coming to look at the changing leaves during autumn, the Boston Globe reported.
The Pomfret, Vermont, select board voted this year to prevent anyone except residents from using Cloudland Road, a small dirt and gravel road that stretches between multiple farms, between Sept. 23 and Oct. 15. Deputy sheriffs will operate checkpoints at the top of the road in Pomfret and at the bottom of it in the town of Woodstock.
“Something had to be done,” said Mike Doten, the owner of an 80-acre farm on Cloudland Road in Pomfret, referring to the damage caused by tourists using the narrow dirt road and trespassing onto locals’ property.
“It was too much,” he added.
Doten said there are three types of visitors during the fall. The first are photographers who he said have “been coming here for decades. You might have had six or eight cars come up at dawn. They’re quiet. They don’t bother anyone.”
The second are tourists visiting local inns and bed and breakfast establishments who have been directed to the road.
“They’re not so bad,” said Doten’s wife, Amy Robb. “Both from a numbers perspective, and how they behave.”
However, the third group, social media influencers, have caused trouble for locals.
“We call them Tik Tockers,” Doten said. “The Tik Tockers started flocking here and they kept growing, year after year.”
Another local, Cathy Emmons, who owns a farm-to-table restaurant at Cloudland Farm, said social media influencers who come to the area don’t seem to realize they’re walking on private property and not a public park.
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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