CHP PLAYS SCROOGE AS NEIGHBORS SAY 'BAH HUMBUG'.

Byline: Eugene Tong Daily News

A Christmas drama - complete with badge-toting Scrooges - took center stage Tuesday night on Pine Hollow Court.

A 25-foot-tall pine decked by neighborhood kids with Christmas lights, tinsel and candy canes sat in the middle of this Valencia cul-de-sac, where homeowners spare no spirit in decorating their houses for the holidays.

But a tannenbaum to the folks on Pine Hollow Court was a traffic hazard in the eyes of the California Highway Patrol.

``It's like a bah humbug,'' said 19-year-old resident Jennifer Castell as she watched CHP officers use a squad car to maneuver the tree out of the roadway.

At one point, officers in two squad cars and another on a motorcycle patrolled the street to make sure no car hit the pine. A handful of neighbors watched.

``We're being Scrooge, but we have to get it out of here,'' said CHP Officer Wendy Hahn. ``The point is this is really dangerous. We have units here directing cars around it.''

Scott Schramm had the tree, in a 4-by-4-foot box, trucked in about two weeks ago, his wife Cyndi said. It was designed to be a centerpiece in a neighborhood where people come from all over to see the lavishly decorated homes.

Alerted by the property management company for the neighborhood, the CHP showed up. Within an hour or so, the tree sat in the Schramms' driveway.

Plan B, Cyndi Schramm said, is to put the tree on an outcropping at the end of the block, next to a giant plastic Santa Claus.

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(1 -- 2) A large Christmas tree on Pine Hollow Court, above, was deemed a traffic hazard by the CHP, below, and moved.

David Crane/Staff Photographer