Cards Against Humanity LLC, makers of the popular card game, may be in legal hot water over a holiday promotion that involved purchasing a private island in Lake St. George, Maine and licensing one foot parcels out to fans, according to the Bangor Daily News.

The Chicago-based game company purchased the six acre Birch Island last fall for $190,000 and renamed it Hawaii 2. It then proceeded to divide it into square foot parcels which it leased to 250,000 purchasers of the company’s annual “Holiday Bulls**t” mystery pack. 

CAH began the holiday promotion in 2012, with a pay-what-you-want pack of cards. The promotion netted the company $70,000 in profit, which it donated to the Wikimedia foundation.  As a joke, it released an infographic of things it could have purchased for $70,000, including a private island.  In 2014, it made the joke a reality, and on one day of the online “Ten Days or Whatever of Kwanzaa” ten-gifts-for-$15.00 promotion, purchasers received a lease deed, a map, and a small flag they could plant to claim their parcel of land. 

There was also a complicated puzzle hidden within the 10 gifts, which led to a prize (250,000 one-of-a-kind sloth cards and a bottle of scotch) hidden on the island in a safe. CAH hauled the safe to the island, and erected a shed to house it, with the help of some Liberty, ME volunteer firefighters.

However, some local officials are not amused.  According to the BDN article “[T]hat kind of extreme subdividing and the installation of a platform, shed and safe within 22 feet of the lake’s normal high-water line are in violation of Liberty’s subdivision and shoreland zoning ordinances, according to Liberty Code Enforcement Officer Donald Harriman.“

Harriman wrote letters to CAH and affiliated entities last month, stating they had until April 15 to cease all commercial activity on the island, revoke the 250,000 “licenses,” and remove the shed and platform.  If they fail to comply, the town could levy fines of $100 -$2,500 per day per violation, which would be a lot.  As of last Friday, CAH had not responded.

As part of the 2014 CAH holiday promotion, the company donated $250,000 to the Washington, D.C.-based Sunlight Foundation, which promotes transparency in government. Last year, CAH also sold an aptly named box of Bulls**t for Black Friday and donated the profit to Heifer International (see “Cards Against Humanity's Hit 'Bulls**t'”).