OREM, Utah - Mermaid Tails made quite the splash as Christmas presents, but more and more are getting banned from public pools across Utah.
“I was super bummed,” said Kolbe Bartholomew. She bought her 8-year-old daughter a tail for a birthday present just before Christmas.
“We started seeing some girls at the pool swimming around with these. They were swimming, swirling, and twirling about," Bartholomew said.
Even though they are expensive, Bartholomew wanted to get her daughter one because she thought it could improve her kicking motion. When they went to the local recreation center, things went well at first.
“Great experience,” she said. “Lots of fun.”
But when they went back after Christmas, something changed.
“Within just a few minutes of putting it on, they told us they had made a rule where we couldn’t use the mono fin at the pool anymore,” Bartholomew said.
An employee at Orem’s recreation center did confirm the banning of the fins on the phone Tuesday, saying it was due to safety reasons.
Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation wrote:
“Mono-fin/mermaid tails are not permitted for use during Splash and Swim/Open Plunge hour Only Coast Guard approved flotation/swim devices are allowed.”
She plans to challenge the rule by offering alternative safety measures, but for now, the move has left Bartholomew and others on Facebook looking elsewhere for opportunities.
“We would have to go to a private swimming pool or a lake,” she said.
