Georgia sheriff cancels Valentine’s Day in Oconee County

Oconee County Sheriff Scott Berry has designated northern Georgia a “NO VALENTINE’S DAY ZONE” in a post on the department’s Facebook page Wednesday night.

Men are “exempt from having to run out and buy lottery scratchers and Hershey bars from the corner stores until February 18, 2014, due to ice, snow, freezing rain,” the tongue-in-cheek post said.

It’s all in fun. But rescheduling the festival of lovers to Tuesday would give the ice-storm battered region time to get roads back to normal and make Valentine’s Day a safer affair.

Though it sounds like a pretty practical safety suggestion to motorists, it was more likely something else that drove Sheriff Scott Berry to the decision.

“I think he was just trying to cut the monotony,” dispatcher John Ogle told CNN.

Deputies have been practically snowed in at the office for a marathon 34-hour shift, and the sheriff wanted to give them something to smile at, John Ogle said.