Cursed Tongue: Signless Spring

Posted by CursedTongue on March 10, 2007

Last Tuesday the Scottsdale city council voted to ban temporary street signs. Temporary street signs plague Arizona like no other place I’ve ever lived.

They range from professionally printed behemoths to hand scrawled messages on florescent copy paper stapled to wooden garden steaks. Advertising everything from get rich quick schemes to $600 Chihuahua puppies to a safe environment in which to meet other singles, the signs clutter every unguarded street corner. Popping up like ugly advertising daisies, they beg, they beseech and make me want to crank call any phone numbers they include.

If only it were simply politicians guilty of spreading the highly contagious sign blight. But it’s also people trying to sell new homes, landscaping services, and bulk Hoodia. It’s bad enough that spammers invade my inbox. But it’s a downright visual assault to block everyone’s view of cookie cutter pink oleanders, agave and bushes pruned within an inch of their lives so they resemble pillbox hats.

Imagine the negative impact the law will have on the Garage Sale Industry. It will also hurt the little guys, like me. People who happen to look for garage sales in the snotty, rich neighborhoods of Scottsdale. I am not, however, worried about the people advertising the sale of puppies or diet supplements. I am especially not worried about the homebuilders, who can afford real billboards.

Two previous attempts to ban the signs in Scottsdale were curbed by concerns about squashing Freedom of Speech. Something that four of the seven city council members aren’t worried about this time, apparently.

The council is made up of elected officials, some of the biggest offenders of sign pollution. Which wouldn’t really be so terrible, if, after elections, they behaved like five-year-olds and picked up after themselves.

Some council members were worried about the ramifications of the ban on unknown political candidates. The other established candidates felt that terminating a cheap and public conduit for campaigning was the perfect means of sustaining their incumbency. It’s not as if candidates for a piddly local election have the funds for TV spots. Nor is it likely that voters will exert themselves much when researching candidates.

That being said, I’m sure everyone votes for the candidate whose signs they’ve seen the most of. I know that’s how I decide.

The problem with the sign ban is enforcement. Critics accuse the council of protecting their phony baloney jobs by crusading for a prettier Scottsdale that will never be. It’s unlikely that realtors, house painters and people too cheap to run a classified ad to sell their couch will stop employing signs, which hang around on street corners like so many two-dimensional whores.

It will be up to city employees to remove signs, and if they’re that serious about it, track down offenders if they actually expect to collect fines. I’m highly doubtful that council member will be paying fines for their own promiscuous proliferation of signage.

Although the Scottsdale law wouldn’t affect private property, many HOAs already have rules in place regarding signage. Typically they frown on everything from a “For Rent” sign on the lawn to a banner adorned with insanely happy Easter rabbits. And still, the mentally challenged hares grin manically at me. (I think there’s some repressed trauma involving a fateful Easter Sunday and a man in a rabbit suit involved.) Even though I don’t like the rabbits, I defend my neighbor’s right to display them on their own property, and think HOA rules are far to invasive.

Menacing childhood icons aside, it would be a sight for sore eyes to have signless intersections and medians. But it seems that if campaign signs do nothing else, they alert the largely disinterested voting public of upcoming local elections. It may be annoying to be reminded of our civic duties, but it’s even more annoying to have elected officials passing laws that make them look engaged and concerned, but probably won’t amount to a hill of advertisements.

- Sarah Letnes

Filed Under: Cursed Tongue, Guest Blog - Comments: Be the First to Comment

Tags: humor, politics

top