Some Commanders in Chief have been a little picky about what's allowed on the property
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Personal cell phones
During the first Trump administration, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly forbade “both guests and staff” from having their personal phones with them in the West Wing. West Wing employees weren’t allowed to use their personal cell phones at work starting in January 2018 and were only allowed to carry government-issued phones without texting capabilities. Aides said this rule was for security reasons and was an attempt to limit the number of devices connected to the White House Wi-Fi, while other insider sources said limiting leaks to the press was the driving force. Either way, staffers were unhappy with this White House first, since they weren’t able to contact their families while at work.
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Broccoli
Countless children have declared that if they were president, they’d ban broccoli and eat ice cream for dinner—but only one has grown up to keep their word (or at least part of it). In 1990, George H.W. Bush declared he wouldn’t allow the vegetable to be served at the White House or on Air Force One. “I do not like broccoli,” Bush explained at the time. “And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!” And just like that, the green veggie was on the list of White House bans. Talk about presidential power.
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Balloons
When the White House announced it would be opening its doors to visitors in October 2017, it had a couple of caveats. Visitors were told to leave the standard guns, fireworks, knives and aerosols at home—along with balloons. It’s unclear whether the wayward party balloons that caused a security scare in 2016 had anything to do with this decision. Nonetheless, White House decorations are still incredibly festive—even without balloons.
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Smoking
In 1993, Bill and Hillary Clinton banned smoking at White House dinners, no longer offering ashtrays on the tables. Four years later, the president made an executive order banning smoking in all federal government buildings—during dinner or otherwise.
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Squirrels
In 1955, Dwight Eisenhower had a putting green installed at the White House for him and his first family to enjoy, but his pristine lawn was soon torn apart by squirrels. Ike was not amused. “The next time you see one of those squirrels go near my putting green, take a gun and shoot it!” he told his valet. In an act of grace, his staff caught and released the critters instead—which still put the president under fire from animal activists.
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Jeans
When George W. Bush became president, one of his first orders was to bring back the White House dress code of his father’s days. Bush Jr. banned jeans in the Oval Office, and he also required men to wear neckties and women to wear “appropriate business attire” as a sign of respect.
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A first daughter
Alice Roosevelt, the notoriously outspoken oldest daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, made sure her father’s administration ended with a bang. She reportedly buried a voodoo doll of First Lady Nellie Taft—wife of her father’s successor, William Howard Taft—in the White House lawn. Between her hex and insults (such as calling Woodrow Wilson a “whey-blooded schoolmaster”), Alice was banned from the White House for the two administrations after her father’s.
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Cameras
Until Michelle Obama announced the end of the ban in 2015, cameras weren’t allowed during White House tours for more than 40 years. Visitors weren’t allowed to snap pictures starting in the 1970s partially because the flash could damage artwork (unlike today’s cameras, which can get a great shot without the flash), but also because tourists would stray from their groups when they paid more attention to their photos than the tour.
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Concerts
For 90 years starting around 1842, the White House lawn hosted the Marine Band for an outdoor concert every Saturday in the summer. Ulysses Grant and his wife would even go out and mingle with the public during the concerts in the 1870s. In 1862, however, the concert series went on hold. New President Abraham Lincoln’s 11-year-old son had just died, and his wife banned the concerts that summer. The next year, the concerts moved to Lafayette Square, and in 1864 they were back at the White House. By the 1930s, the tradition ended for good.
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Christmas trees
Theodore Roosevelt was a serious conservationist—he established 150 national forests as president—and some historians say he saw the Christmas tree tradition as contributing to deforestation, so he refused to have a live tree in the White House. Unfortunately for the president, his sneaky kids weren’t fans of the house rules. Eight-year-old Archibald enlisted White House staff to help him sneak a little tree into a closet that he revealed on Christmas Day in 1902, complete with presents for the family.
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Alcohol
Rutherford B. Hayes’s wife, so-called “Lemonade Lucy,” has gone down in history for keeping hard drinks out of the White House between 1877 and 1881. Some say President Hayes was the real buzzkill, though, using the ban to win over the Republican Party’s temperance advocates. Hayes wasn’t the only president to keep the White House sober without the help of Prohibition. Eleanor Roosevelt allowed wine but no hard liquor in the White House during Franklin Roosevelt’s time in office. And Jimmy Carter kept the building dry during his presidency and only took a tiny glass of wine to toast during a Soviet arms summit.
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Sources:
- CNN: “White House bans personal cell phones from the West Wing”
- New York Times: ‘”I’m President,’ So No More Broccoli!”
- Newsweek: “Trump Bans Balloons, Selfie Sticks at the White House”
- The White House Historical Association: “A Charming Resort: White House United States Marine Band Concerts”
- WhiteHouse.gov: “Lucy Ware Webb Hayes”
