POSTING ON POLES: Ban on flyers should be repealed

Chapel Hill Herald
Thursday April 18, 2002
EDITORIAL
Page 4

Chalk up another law you knew nothing about: it is forbidden, by the town of Chapel Hill, to post flyers and signs on telephone and utility poles. The reason you may not know about this, of course, is that the statute is honored more in the breech.

In other words, no one has paid much attention to the 41-year-old law, at least until Erik Ose decided to fight it. Ose, the owner of a West Rosemary Street music store, earlier this month was putting up flyers advertising a "banquet for global peace and justice." A Chapel Hill police officer saw him attaching a flyer to a pole near the Franklin Street post office.

The officer, who apparently did know about the statute, asked Ose to desist. In the spirit of principled refusal made famous by our colonial forefathers, Ose refused. He refused again, when asked by a police sergeant, who then presented Ose with a ticket for the infraction.

The infraction was of section 16-3 of the Town Code, which says "no signs or notices for advertising purposes shall be fastened or tacked to telephone, telegraph or electric light poles or trees on the streets or sidewalks."

The logical question to ask here is why there is such an ordinance on the town books. The poles are used by dozens of people each day to let the community know about a concert, an apartment to rent or even a banquet for peace and justice.

They do no harm. In fact, as Ose suggests, the poles full of information add to the ambiance of a college town, where the skinny on what's happening is available on every street corner.

They do not interfere with town efforts to keep the community beautiful and tidy. In fact, very few of the flyers last more than a week on the poles, since the town's Public Works Department regularly strips them from their posts.

Chapel Hill officials would prefer flyers be attached only to the town kiosks, where postings are legal. But there are just a few kiosks - now, in fact, fewer than normal - and they are not to be found everywhere.

Officials must safeguard the town's appearance, but regulating the posting of flyers seems a bit much. Trees still need to be protected against the depredations of staples, but the rest of the ordinance serves no useful purpose. It should be repealed.