In a move that has united Chicago’s design community and enraged virtually everyone else, the Chicago City Council voted 34-16 on Wednesday to pass the “Dibs Aesthetic Reform and Beautification Act” (DARBA), a first-of-its-kind ordinance requiring that all furniture used to claim shoveled-out parking spaces meet a minimum standard of “mid-century modern or equivalent design merit.” Three aldermen walked out. One wept openly.

The legislation, sponsored by Alderman Kevin Riordan of the 32nd Ward, establishes a new “Bureau of Dibs Compliance” (BDC) within the Department of Streets and Sanitation, staffed by a team of six city-employed interior designers — classified as GS-9 Aesthetic Enforcement Specialists — who will patrol residential streets following snowfalls to evaluate the aesthetic quality of space-saving furniture. The bureau has been allocated an annual operating budget of $1.2 million and will report directly to a newly created Deputy Commissioner for Curbside Visual Standards.

“The practice of dibs is a sacred Chicago tradition, and we have no intention of ending it,” Riordan said during the council session. “But there’s no reason our streets need to look like a yard sale at a haunted house every time it snows. We are a world-class city. If you’re going to claim public right-of-way with a piece of furniture, that furniture should reflect the design standards of a world-class city. We owe it to the streetscape. We owe it to ourselves.”

Under the new rules, effective immediately, acceptable dibs items include Eames-style shell chairs, Hans Wegner reproductions, tulip side tables, and “any piece that demonstrates a clear understanding of form, proportion, and materiality as assessed by BDC field personnel using the Curbside Aesthetic Compliance Rubric (CACR-7).” Explicitly banned items include broken lawn chairs, milk crates, ironing boards, mop buckets, “any La-Z-Boy recliner manufactured before 2015” — a provision that generated forty-five minutes of floor debate — and, per a last-minute amendment, “novelty furniture of any kind, including but not limited to inflatable items and pieces shaped like animals.”

Violations carry a $150 fine and immediate confiscation of the offending furniture, which will be inventoried, tagged, and donated to the Chicago History Museum’s new exhibit, “Dibs: A Visual History of Territorial Furniture Placement.” Repeat offenders face escalating penalties up to $500 and mandatory attendance at a four-hour “Design Literacy for Public Spaces” workshop administered by the Department of Cultural Affairs.

Reaction in Chicago’s neighborhoods has been swift and largely hostile. “I spent two hours shoveling out my spot on Kedzie in minus-ten windchill, and now some guy with a clipboard is telling me my folding chair isn’t fancy enough?” said Bridgeport resident Mike Grabowski, 58. “My grandfather used that chair for dibs. His grandfather used that chair for dibs. That chair has more history than half the stuff in the Art Institute. It’s got provenance. Put that in your rubric.”

“I’d like to see one of these so-called Aesthetic Enforcement Specialists come to my block and try to confiscate anything,” added Grabowski’s neighbor, Donna Piekarski. “I’d like to see that very much.”

Design professionals, however, have praised the legislation. “Finally, someone is taking streetscape aesthetics seriously at the municipal policy level,” said interior designer Nadia Osei, who runs a Logan Square studio. “I’ve put together a curated ‘Dibs Collection’ on my website — tasteful, weather-resistant pieces starting at just $289. There’s no reason utility and beauty can’t coexist, even in a snowbank. Form follows function. Function follows snowfall.”

The ordinance is expected to face legal challenges. The ACLU of Illinois released a statement calling the law “a creative, possibly unprecedented interpretation of municipal authority” and noting that it may raise First Amendment concerns, as “the choice to place a battered office chair in a parking space is, arguably, a form of protected expression — one with deep roots in Chicago’s civic fabric.” A constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago, speaking on background, called the ordinance “the most interesting intersection of zoning law and furniture I’ve seen in twenty-three years of practice, which is both a compliment and a cry for help.”

Mayor Johnson has indicated he will sign the bill, though he noted at a press conference that he personally “has always been more of a Bauhaus guy” and urged the Bureau of Dibs Compliance to “exercise enforcement discretion during the transition period, particularly in wards with limited access to mid-century modern retail.”