Scofflaws beware: Jumping from the Stillwater Lift Bridge has officially been outlawed.

Long a magnet for thrill-seekers and bored teenagers on hot summer days, the historic span was the subject of a new Stillwater ordinance passed without comment by the City Council on Tuesday that says violators could get slapped with a petty misdemeanor and a $300 fine.

"We all kind of thought it was illegal anyway," said Stillwater Mayor Ted Kozlowski, who said he and other council members were surprised to learn that no specific ordinance barred jumpers.

At least one bridge tender saw something concerning this summer and asked the city to act, Kozlowski said. The mayor said he also witnessed a group of eight to 10 people jumping from the lifting portion of the bridge during a Tuesday night event in Stillwater's riverside Lowell Park.

The bridge tender couldn't lift the bridge with people on it, and boats on the St. Croix River were waiting for the bridge to go up so they could pass through, Kozlowski said. "They were just being boneheads," he said.

The new ordinance covers all bridges and structures over any channel of public water in Stillwater.

The threats to bridge jumpers include a concrete deck along the Stillwater side of the river that often gets obscured by high river levels. The river's depth constantly changes, making it hard to know where it's deep enough to land safely. And debris floating down the river — a Minnesota Department of Transportation spokesman said they've seen everything from tree trunks to telephone poles — could lurk beneath the surface.

"Everything but the kitchen sink seems to float down the St. Croix River," said MnDOT spokesman Kent Barnard. The river's tea-colored waters, a result of natural tannins, make it difficult to see what lies beneath.

Kozlowski, who grew up in Stillwater and admitted jumping off the bridge in his youth, said it's "just really dicey."

"It's nothing we should condone," he said.

The 1,053-foot bridge, built in 1931 linking Minnesota and Wisconsin, was converted to a bicycle-pedestrian bridge in 2020.