When Ted Pelkey was denied a building permit to build a garage by the town of Westford, Vermont, he decided to construct something else entirely instead!

As a way of getting revenge, Ted built an enormous 700-pound wooden statue of a middle finger. The statue is in the middle of the glow of two floodlights, allowing drivers on the nearby Route 128 to see it at all times. It cost Ted $4,000 to build the statue, but he felt that it was worth it after all that the town put him through.

This all started over a decade ago, when Ted applied for a building permit with the Westford Development Review Board (DRB) in the hopes of building a garage on his land. He wanted to do this so that he could move his truck repair and monofilament recycling businesses right next to his home, as opposed to operating out of Swinton, some 25 miles away.

Ted fantasized about being able to “get out of bed in the morning, take [his] coffee, walk across the driveway, and go to work.” However, the town denied his request over and over again, even as he continued to reapply year after year. The town claims that Ted has not met all necessary requirements, but he says they have a grudge against him.

“I’ve been put through the wringer by these people, and it’s just not right,” he said. “I haven’t been treated fairly at all.”

After he was denied the last time, Ted decided to get revenge back in October.

“I was sitting at a bar,” he explained, “and said to my wife, ‘Hey, I want to get a statue made of a middle finger, and I’m going to put it up on the lawn’… If you don’t want to look at the building, look at this.”

So Ted built the middle finger, and the town was not able to do anything to stop him. While Vermont has strict rules about billboards, they are powerless to remove the middle finger since it is not an advertisement.

“Although the structure is visible from a state highway, it is outside of the State Right of Way and not within our jurisdiction,” said Jacqui DeMen, a spokeswoman for the Vermont Agency of Transportation. “The structure does not meet the statutory definition of ‘sign’ and thus can’t be regulated under the Vermont Billboard Law.”

Ted said that he has accomplished his goal in that many locals have become familiar with his case..

“It was critical to me to make sure that my neighbors and the people who live in this town understood that I didn’t put that up there for them,” he said. “It is aimed directly at the people who sit in our town office… I’m hoping that maybe some good comes out of it. Maybe.”

Ted’s next appeal for building his garage is in January. He has made it abundantly clear that until the town lets him build his garage, the middle finger will stand!