HUDSON, Ohio (WOIO) - Hudson City Council now allows ice fishing at Hudson Springs Park after the mayor went viral for suggesting ice fishing could lead to prostitution.

Hudson Mayor Craig Shubert made this now infamous statement during Tuesday’s city council meeting when council members were discussing whether ice fishing should be allowed at Hudson Springs Park due to liability purposes:

“If you open this up to ice fishing, while on the surface it sounds good, then what happens next year? Does somebody come back and say, ‘I want an ice shanty in Hudson Springs Park for ‘X’ amount of time?’ And if you then allow ice fishing with shanties, then that leads to another problem. Prostitution.”

Watch Mayor Shubert’s comments and the rest of the ice fishing safety discussion in the video below, beginning around 2 hours and 4 minutes into the clip:

Ice fishing at the park has been prohibited for several years, a council member said.

The next day, this sign popped up by the lake at Hudson Springs Park.

Shubert’s comments went viral and drew laughs from some and criticism from others and left some wondering how exactly he was running the day-to-day operations of the city of Hudson.

A city spokesperson explained, “The mayor is a part-time ceremonial mayor with no vote or power to enact legislation.”

In September of last year, the mayor lashed out at the Hudson School Board for what he claimed was essentially child pornography in a book being used in a creative writing class in the district.

Shubert demanded the school board resign, they refused, and all three members up for re-election in November won their seats.

Copyright 2022 WOIO. All rights reserved.