|
Well, let me preface that with "out-of-town spammers"... a lot of the locals still feel it's their God-given right to do whatever is best for business.
Another furniture store going out of business and even though I had a good talk with their manager back in February explaining what he is allowed and not allowed to do, and even though he pretty much complied for several months, now that they are going out of business they've decided to say "the hell with it" and spam all the nearby intersections every weekend.
Several weeks ago they started posting a person on the corner holding an oversized sign to watch all their other signs and make sure I didn't take them down. I decided I was going to be nice and approach him and tell him about the illegality of it all, but by the time I parked and approcahed the intersection on foot, he was gone. The lady soliciting donations for some charity was there and said he was walking over to a nearby fast food restaurant to wash his hand because a bird pooped on it (now if that isn't telling him something!). So, rather than wait for him to return, I just took down all his signs while he was away. He might have been fired from his job because for the next few weekends it was just signs that went up, which I promptly took down each time.
This morning I caught his replacement in the act of putting up the giant 30x30" signs as I was pulling down some other signs diagonally across the intersection. He shouted Hey! to me and I said back that he should take his signs down if he wanted to keep them. He then started to make his way across the intersection, shouting various things (not threatening in substance, just about how he contacted the state highway administration who told him it was ok to post his signs on one side of the highway (yeah, right). By now I had already called the police and they were hopefully on their way.
The guy came over to my side and of course wanted to know who I worked for. "The people who live here" I responded. It went back and forth about how I had no right to do what I was doing and I kept it factual -- quoting the county code and state laws and the fact that it explicitly states that citizens are allowed to take them without being accused of stealing. He accused me of being the problem as to why businesses were doing so poorly. I could have accused him of being the reason that real estate sales are doing so poorly in the area, but I held my tongue.
He started to walk away and place more signs and I took a picture of him while he was doing it. He came back across the street and started attempting to take a picture of me and wanted to know my name. I told him we could do all that when the police arrived, and then ducked into a nearby coffee shop while I waited for the police. He went back to retrieve all his staked signs and walked them back to the store a few blocks away. Just as he was out of sight, the police arrived. FOUR police cars! I gave them the history of this store's sign postings, reviewed the applicable state and county regs, and they offered to go talk with the store manager. They agreed the signs are nothing more than abandoned property.
Just now I drove by and there was the guy standing in the median of a major intersection with a humungous sign (he's allowed these by law, unfortunately) and no other signs in site. It was a bit dicey there for a while, but I think I can put up the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED sign now -- oh but wait, that wouldn't be legal. Never mind.
|
