The year 2017 is already starting on a high note.
The famed Hollywood sign was vandalized early Sunday morning to read “Hollyweed.”
In an apparent New Year’s prank, someone was able to climb up Mount Lee, in the Hollywood Hills area of the Santa Monica Mountains, and place tarps over the two O’s on the sign to make them look like E’s, according to a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department. The incident was caught on surveillance cameras and the LAPD is investigating the act as a misdemeanor trespassing crime.
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The alteration comes after California voters approved recreational marijuana. The state’s businesses, however, aren’t licensed to sell recreational marijuana until Jan. 1, 2018.
Someone changed the Hollywood sign overnight. This is real. Staring at it now. pic.twitter.com/HptMzAURla
— Ryan Parker (@TheRyanParker) January 1, 2017
Built in 1923, the Hollywood sign was first changed to “Hollyweed” on Jan. 1, 1976, when a California State University, Northridge student similarily hung curtains over some of the letters to alter the sign. The “H” also was once hidden to read “Ollywood” during the Oliver North/Iran-Contra hearings, and when the Pope visited in 1987 the sign was changed to “Holywood.”
The beloved landmark also has been completely changed over the years to read “GO UCLA” and “CAL TECH.”
