This year 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.
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.
Built in 1923, the Hollywood sign was first changed to “Hollyweed” on Jan. 1, 1976 when a Cal State Northridge student similarly hung curtains over some of the letters to alter the sign. The “H” was once hidden to read “Ollywood” during the Oliver North and the Iran-Contra hearings. When the Pope visited in 1987 the sign was changed to “Holywood.”
The beloved monument has also been completely changed over time to read “GO UCLA” and “CAL TECH.”
