The Walt Disney Company is banning selfie-sticks from its theme parks, citing safety concerns, a company spokesperson announced this week. Under this new policy, which takes effect this coming Tuesday, selfie sticks won’t be able to make it past the bag check at any Disney World theme park in Orlando, Florida, including The water parks and the DisneyQuest gaming attraction at Downtown Disney. The rule also applies to Disneyland Resort and California Adventure in Anaheim starting on June 30, and to the Disney Parks in Paris and Hong Kong starting on July 1st.

Park guests will be checked for the equipment during the routine bag check that happens at the parks’ entrances. They will have the choice of turning in their selfie-sticks for pick-up later, or to go back to their cars or hotel rooms to stow them. This has been coming for some time, but maybe the thing that finally sealed the deal was when the California Screamin’ roller coaster at California Adventure was halted after a passenger pulled out a selfie-stick, resulting in the ride closing for an hour.

As a Disneyland annual passholder myself, I jump for joy at this new ban. Frankly, the crowds are congested enough in the parks on a year-round basis without the added annoyance (and actual physical hazard) of people sticking long poles in the air just so they can have yet another good angle to take photographs of themselves. Just do what guests at the parks have done for the last sixty years, and politely ask some other guests to take the picture for you. You’ll find that nine of ten times, most people will be agreeable and say yes. It is the Happiest Place On Earth after all.

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HT: Orlando Sentinel