The small town of Lititz, Pennsylvania, home of some charming cafes and America’s first commercial pretzel bakery, is a lot like Derry, Maine, the setting of Stephen King’s It—minus the whole “clown eating local children” thing. Local law enforcement is also way more responsive to the threat of child-eating clowns than the selectively blind Derry Police, as evidenced by a post from the Lititz Borough Police Department on Facebook:
It’s still not clear who was responsible for tying the balloons to sewer grates around Lititz, although whoever they are, they’re diligent: A representative of the police department tells CBS News that the number of sewers affected was “definitely above 20.”“They pretty much hit the entire town and the area around the town,” Sgt. Stephen Detz says. Balloons have also been tied to sewers in Sydney, Australia, as part of an official marketing campaign for the film, but those were accompanied by graffiti clearly marking them as such. More likely, this is just a Stephen King fan having some fun—perhaps even a Stephen King fan within the Lititz Police Department itself.
After all, it is a perfect opportunity to raise creepy clown awareness. The Pennsylvania State Police recently issued a bulletin advising citizens to be on the lookout for a renewed wave of clown sightings similar to the one that swept America last fall. “Simply wearing a clown mask or dressing up as a clown isn’t a crime,” Detz says. “If they are showing support for a movie that’s not a problem. It’s when they start trying to harass or annoy people with their presence [that there’s a problem].”