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It's phonetic for a local pronunciation.

You hear Balmer Merlin a lot.

It’s a joke.

That’s how they pronounce it.

It's more common to see this written (and pronounced by locals) as "Bawlmer".

edit to clarify: the pronunciation varies across demographic/racial/ethnic lines, with "Bawlmer" being common among blue-collar white natives, but that's a minority of the population of the city proper.