Is Twerking Illegal in Louisiana? "Hogwash" Report Claims Twerkers Will Get 30 Days in Jail

Mayor Lawrence Henagan has gone on record saying that twerking is not banned in his city

According to DeQuincy, La.'s web page, the city is "a place where you can escape the hustle and bustle of big city life and enjoy the pleasures of living in a community where you will always find a warm welcome and old fashioned hospitality." 

It is also a place to escape the devil's dancing: Twerking.

PRLog, a free press release distribution website, published a supposed release early this afternoon that announced that twerking (what is twerking? Find out now) had officially been banned in DeQuincy. 

The press release reads: "The dance craze twerking has become such a problem in the small town of DeQuincy, Louisiana that city officials have made it illegal," and goes on to quote the sheriff as saying that first time offenders "will receive a mandatory 30 days in the county jail."

According to the release, mayor Maynard Wilkens said twerking, "is a defiant act against Jesus" and clarified that DeQuincy "will still allow dancing...just no jigglin', shakin' and ‘dry humping' anywhere in our city limits."

If this all sounds like a joke to you, it's because it is.

"It's a bunch of hogwash," the real DeQuincy Mayor, Lawrence Henagan, told New Orlean's Times-Picayune, further noting that before this incident he didn't even know what twerking was. "There's nothing to it... Somebody keeps this mess going on." 

That somebody is probably the same person who sent out two previous fake releases about the Louisiana town of less than 4,000 people, one claiming the town banned Koreans and the other saying all students had been issued guns.

So there is some truth in the original press release. It quotes a 24-year-old Brandon Adams as saying, "There is nothing to do in this town, seriously. Twerking is all us kids had left and now they're taking it away from us." (Swap "twerking" for "sending out prank press releases" and it makes sense.) 

On the same DeQuincy website, the latest news bulletin posted alerted citizens that the City Council meeting would be held on April 9, 2012. Beyond that are the meeting notes from March 9, 2009, where the biggest scandal was "a dog barking at night" and "several stray dogs in the Coffee Street area causing problems." 

So feel free to keep on twerking in DeQuincy. No update on the apparent dog situation.