page_title: Love lock
section_title: Notable locations and controversies
hierarchical_section_title: Love lock / Notable locations and controversies
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo is a close-up shot of Love Padlocks on the w:Corktown Footbridge on August 14th, 2017.
context_page_description: A love lock or love padlock is a padlock that sweethearts lock to a bridge, fence, gate, monument, or similar public fixture to symbolize their love. Typically the sweethearts' names or initials, and perhaps the date, are inscribed on the padlock, and its key is thrown away to symbolize unbreakable love.
  Since the 2000s, love locks have proliferated at an increasing number of locations worldwide. They are now mostly treated by municipal authorities as litter or vandalism, and there is some cost to their removal. However, there are authorities who embrace them, and who use them as fundraising projects or tourist attractions.
context_section_description: In many cities, love locking has been classified an act of vandalism.
  In several countries, the local authorities and owners of various landmarks have expressed concern often have the padlocks removed:
  In Algiers love padlocks were added in September 2013 to a bridge that was previously known as the "suicide bridge" in Telemly, a district of Algiers. Some youths brought tools to remove them by night a few days later, after a video was made by an imam saying that love padlocks are forbidden in Islam.
  In Winnipeg, Canada, in 2015 a woman biking on a bridge was seriously injured by a love lock that snagged her forearm, requiring a trip to the emergency room and 21 stitches.
  Authorities in Canberra, Australia, decided in February 2015 to remove love locks from a bridge that was becoming a popular location to affix them, and from other locations in Canberra. Justifications given for the decision were the possibility of future threats to public safety from eventual overloading of the bridge with a mass of padlocks, and structural interference resulting from corrosion. A bridge in Paris was mentioned by authorities as an example of an overloaded bridge, a probable reference to the Pont des Arts.
  On 20 May 2015, council authorities in Melbourne, Australia, began removing love locks from Southgate footbridge due to safety concerns. Around 22,000 love locks were reported to have been fixed to the railings, causing cables to sag.
  In Toowoomba, Australia, love locks have been appearing at Picnic Point, a heritage-listed tourist attraction featuring a park and lookout at the top of the Great Dividing Range.
  On Vancouver Island, Canada, love padlocks appearing along the Wild Pacific Trail in Ucluelet on Vancouver Island, have caused controversy as some regard them as a distraction from nature.
  Love padlocks were removed from the Humber Bay Arch Bridge in Toronto, due to concerns over aesthetics and structural concerns if the Bridge were to become a love padlock destination.
   
  In the United States, in Norfolk, Virginia, from 2015-2017, citizens removed many padlocks from a scenic pedestrian bridge over The Hague inlet in Ghent, a historic neighborhood in Norfolk.  They then went to the Norfolk Circuit Court and forced the Norfolk City Council to remove the remaining locks and to cease encouraging such locks.  The court pointed out that Virginia law considers such locks to be illegal obstructions in a right-of-way and that users of rights-of-way in Virginia have the legal right to remove such obstructions
  In De Pere, Wisconsin, at Voyageur Park, locks are being attached to a lookout called Sunset Point.
  In Canfield, Ohio, the BIG LOCK was installed in 2014 as a community art project at the Canfield Fairgrounds. Visitors are encouraged to add a personalized lock to the 12' x 12' steel-cage rooster.  The Canfield Fair is one of the largest county fairs in the country, and the rooster its official symbol. The name BIG LOCK is a play on words, referencing the Big Rock, that is also a highly referenced symbol of the Fair.
  In New York City a group of locksport enthusiasts organized to remove locks from the Brooklyn Bridge in 2013.
  In Las Vegas, a 1/2 scale model of the Eiffel Tower located at the Paris Hotel on the famed Las Vegas Strip has inspired visitors to place lovers' locks on the walkway out to the elevators to the top of the tower. Visitors are told not to throw the key from the tower and locks sold in the lobby are opened and provided for a fee without a key to prevent this practice.
  People are actually encouraged to leave their locks on chains strung between posts at Lover's Lock Plaza in Lovelock, Nevada. The name of the town is unrelated to the love locks; it was named after a family that settled in the area in the 1860s. The town didn't adopt the practice until much later.
  In San Angelo, TX, the city has erected a sculpture "Forever Love" inspired by other "love locks" such as (formerly) the bridge in Paris.
  In Discovery Bay, a small town in Northern California, a lover's bridge was created by newlyweds Carolyn and Anthony Georg
caption: Love padlocks attached to the railing of Corktown Footbridge
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