Blog: Billboard Bully Strikes Again

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East Pikeland joins at least 18 other local communities targeted by Thaddeus J. Bartkowski, CEO of Chester County Outdoor, and his legal counsel, the law firm of Kaplin Stewart, in their game of corporate bullying. 

Those communities have said, emphatically, that they don’t want digital billboards. As a result, they’ve been subjected to appeals, litigation and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars spent in legal fees. 

Bartkowski and Kaplin’s first appeal tactic is to object to the exclusionary nature of local sign ordinances.

Phoenixville’s zoning ordinance does allow free-standing signage. So, apparently, does East Pikeland's. They also allow off-site advertising, but don’t allow signs the size Mr Bartkowski wants to sell. Communities, not the billboard industry, should have the right to determine appropriate limits for billboard size, and according to a chart of standard billboard sizes, Phoenixville's and East Pikeland’s ordinances approved sizes for free-standing signs would accommodate at least half of the industry-approved sizes of billboards.

Even in the case of an exclusionary ordinance, though, as Mr. Bartkowski and his legal counsel are aware, communities have the right to ban digital billboards outright if they can show that they are a detriment to local aesthetics or citizen safety.

A recent study by Philadelphia urban planner Jonathan Snyder demonstrates that billboards have a detrimental impact on local property value: In Philadelphia, properties purchased within 500 feet of billboards have a decrease in sale price of $30,826. For each additional billboard in a census tract, there is an average $947 drop in home value, throughout the entire census tract.

On the safety issue: The website of a prominent billboard company boasts that its signs are "virtually impossible to avoid."  Another company’s website promises that "outdoor boards are unavoidable, unstoppable."

Marketing blogger Andrea Atkins, in a blog post promoting Mr. Bartkowski’s Outdoor Advertising wrote: “Qhat is the No. 1 best feature of outdoor advertising?  That customers are basically prisoners; outdoor advertising is difficult to get away from ... Is Victoria Secret bringing us new bras? I was staring into space during the commercial, but its hard to miss a gorgeous, half-naked model on a 50-foot digital billboard during rush hour!”

The website of Mr. Bartkowski’s own EMCOutdoor makes the same point: “Outdoor advertising is a great way to reach people where they live, work and play. It is media that is everywhere, and when used with creativity, it creates brand new ad spaces where none existed before—ad spaces that can stop people in their tracks.”

I would suggest that public roads are not a good place to stop people in their tracks, or to grab their attention with an irresistible, half-naked, larger-than-life model. During the seconds a driver is taking to read the latest ad, someone’s child may be trying to cross the street ahead of him. Or a car may be turning out of a blind-side street.

High courts around the country, as well as the Supreme Court itself, have agreed that by definition and by the ad companies’ own admission, digital advertising is dangerous and distracting and towns have every right to say no. As a classic town, as a walkable community and as a demonstration of the rights of the people to say no to corporate bullying, Phoenixville should say no to Mr. Bartkowski’s digital billboards. 

For more information, check my last .

Also:

Abington Citizens Network encourages area municipalities to work together for legislative relief.

Save Ardmore Coalition documents the communities impacted by Bartkowski.

SCRUB Society to End Urban Blight works against billboards in the Philadelphia setting.

Scenic America is a national organization doing extensive research on billboards, billboard legislation, and ways to protect citizens from billboard blight.