Free the Telephone Poles!

The Chapel Hill News
April 21, 2002
Page A1
By Frank Heath

My friend Erik Ose visited me with a petition this week. Ose, who owns Lost City Music and Video on Rosemary Street, was given a citation recently for hanging flyers on a utility pole in downtown Chapel Hill. His petition will ask the Town Council to consider changing the ordinance that prohibits the posting of handbills on utility poles in Chapel Hill.

In a statement accompanying this petition, Erik points out the futility of the ordinance when he says, "I could have simply done what everyone else they've ever caught in the act of postering on telephone poles does, namely, torn my own posters down, apologize, and go on to the next corner to put up more posters once the officers' backs were turned. Citizens put flyers up on utility poles every day, and they're going to keep doing it, unless there's a cop on every corner ready to arrest them."

In the end, tearing flyers off utility poles in this town only reveals the even uglier utility poles.

Truth be told, I never envisioned the time that I would stand on a soap box preaching about flyers. In a world where people are blowing themselves up for what they believe, I know that the business of posting handbills is truly a trivial pursuit. But since Ose brought it up -- and produced such a persuasive petition -- I thought I'd throw in my two cents.

If I am an expert on one thing, it's hanging flyers. I've been "flyering" in Chapel Hill since 1986. I've probably affixed half a million flyers and posters to bulletin boards, walls, newspaper boxes, kiosks, fences, trucks and, yes, utility poles, around the Triangle area.

I've actually received citations in Raleigh and Durham for posting on telephone poles. They call it "littering."

Many people see flyers as a blight on the landscape. I completely understand where these people are coming from. Flyers are not always neatly displayed, they can be distracting, they flap in the wind, they get wet, the colors run and they fall to the ground.

Some people, though, see flyers as beautiful and informative, a manifestation of social energy. To these folks, an abundance of flyers in public areas is a sign of public vitality, an indication that there are layers of activity beneath the surface of a place.

Flyers convey a message with impact and immediacy. Like a well-built house, a good flyer combines elements of design, color, message and art into an integrated whole.

Bulletin boards, kiosks and other flyer-posting spots in areas of pedestrian traffic provide an outlet for exchange of information and ideas about local organizations, events and meetings. Flyering also presents small local businesses with an alternative to expensive advertising campaigns.

I believe it's good to bring up flyering at this point in time because for several years now the base of support for public postings has been shrinking in Chapel Hill. As the number of flyer kiosks downtown has dwindled from five to two (and I doubt the kiosk in front of Subway will last through the next phase of Streetscape), some of the town's vitality has been lost.

Additionally, flyers are no longer allowed in many of the restaurants and businesses that traditionally provided wall space for them. (The Yogurt Pump, Hectors, Brueggers, Traxx, the Flying Burrito and the Harris Teeter supermarkets are some examples of this trend toward bare walls.)

On top of that, the number of bulletin boards on the UNC campus has dropped significantly, and the dormitories, now locked up 24 hours a day, are no longer a flyering option. A round of flyering that once would have taken six to eight hours per week, now requires no more than three hours.

The bottom line is, the prevailing wind here seems to be blowing away from favoring posters and other spontaneous communication forms -- and toward neatly trimmed hedges and arrow-straight, clean-washed brick sidewalks. Messages, it seems, may soon only be popping up on your computer screen. (My friend Groves, a fellow posterer, calls Streetscape the "downtown uglification.") In supporting his petition, Ose cuts to the chase when he says, "I think the council needs to take a hard look at whether speech is truly free if it's restricted to one or two little areas in town."

I can't help but draw a parallel between this dwindling support for handbills and the current climate of federal paranoia about speech in this entire country.

As far as I'm concerned, the people of Chapel Hill should be defiantly proud that Jesse Helms once suggested we put a fence around this town and call it the North Carolina Zoo; and we should be proud of the fact that we share space and ideas with the most progressive state university in the South.

The way I look at it, if progressive thought ain't happening here, it ain't happening.

Shouldn't Chapel Hill, of all places, attempt to foster an environment where all people feel free to speak their mind, rather than a Cary-style neatness?

Free the telephone poles, I say.

Frank Heath is a native Chapel Hillian and a local businessman. Messages for him can be sent to frank@catscradle.com or left at 932-2019.

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.

Local Business Petitions for Revamped Flyer Policy

The Daily Tar Heel
April 15, 2002
By Jenny Huang

A local business owner has petitioned the Chapel Hill Town Council to change an ordinance that prohibits signs from being fastened to utility poles, claiming the regulation has direct implications for free speech.
Erik Ose, who owns Lost City Music and Video, located on 402 Rosemary St., says small business owners and community organizations should be allowed to post flyers on telephone poles for grass-roots advertising purposes.

But according to section 16-3 of the town code, "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."

Last week Ose petitioned the Town Council to revise or repeal the ordinance so signs can be posted on poles.

During the meeting, Ose told the council that two Chapel Hill police officers issued him a citation for stapling a poster on a pole in front of the Franklin Street post office and refusing to tear the poster down.

Ose said that although the police officers were courteous, he was disturbed when the officers said they were surprised that Ose would bother being cited and having to go to court when he could have taken the posters down, apologized and put up more posters on the next corner.

"But you know, who's fooling who here?" Ose said Monday night. "Why should a citizen have to play cat-and-mouse games with the police when they're simply trying to publicize a worthy cause or advertise their business or speak out about an issue they care about?"

Chapel Hill Planning Director Roger Waldon said he was surprised to hear Ose's comments on Monday night because he usually hears complaints about people posting signs on poles.

"Usually, the comments we get are the opposite," Waldon said. "The main way in which this issue has come before is periodically there is concern about the appearance of downtown (Chapel Hill)."

Waldon said local merchants have always been concerned that scraps of flyers on telephone poles would degrade the appearance of the downtown area.

But Ose said he thinks aesthetic issues should not be sacrificed for the freedom of expression in the community.

"To me, a pole (with flyers) represents what this town is all about," he said during an interview Tuesday night. "What is more aesthetically appealing -- a picture of a pole with (flyers of) diverse ideas on it or no flyers at all?"

But Curtis Brooks, public works landscape architect, said downtown kiosks were established to create space for businesses and community organizations to advertise.

"The reason we like kiosks instead of poles is because it centralizes notices, so when we do our weekly clean up, it centralizes things," he said.

Brooks said employees of the public works landscape division clean up downtown litter -- including flyers on telephone poles -- on a daily basis and clear off kiosks on a weekly basis.

"Our concerns are just practical," Brooks said. "We prefer the posting of bills in centralized locations."

But Ose said the freedom of speech is restricted with the kiosks, especially since the number of available kiosks has decreased from five to two because of downtown construction.

"If you're restricting free speech to only two areas in town -- is that really free speech?" he said.

Darren Hunicutt, co-coordinator of Internationalist Books on 405 W. Franklin St., said grass-roots advertising is an important medium because small business owners and local community organizations don't have large advertising budgets.

"For small business owners and non-profit organizations, I think (grass-roots advertising) is an exceptional resource," Hunicutt said. "With the amount of foot traffic that goes around, I really think it's effective."

Ose said he has accumulated about 300 signatures on several petitions and plans to present the signatures to the Town Council during its regular business meeting tonight.

But Brooks warns that it is not up to the residents or town staff to make the final decision.

"It's not up to us to value or pass judgment on a policy," Brooks said.

"(Whether or not we can post flyers on poles) is ultimately a policy decision decided by the council."

The City Editor can be reached at citydesk@unc.edu.

Store owner challenges ban on flyers: Utility pole law impedes free speech rights, he says

Chapel Hill Herald
Saturday April 13, 2002
Page 1
By RAY GRONBERG

CHAPEL HILL - A West Rosemary Street record store owner wants the Town Council to repeal Chapel Hill's oft-ignored ban on posting flyers and signs on telephone poles.

Erik Ose says the 41-year-old law is an impediment to free speech that harms political groups and small businesses that can't afford newspaper and broadcast advertising.

Efforts to enforce the ban are a waste of money and undercut Chapel Hill's college-town image, he adds.

"It is a judgment call, but, personally, I feel a telephone pole covered with colorful, exciting, diverse posters looks better than cold, barren poles covered with staples and jagged pieces of paper," Ose said. "That's the kind of Chapel Hill I want to live in, not one where posters are treated like a scourge to be torn down and destroyed."

Ose appeared before the Town Council on Monday to ask members to consider a repeal measure and has since launched a petition drive to gather public support. He said more than 200 people have signed.

Council members relayed Ose's request to Town Manager Cal Horton, who will report back with research and advice later this spring.

Ose launched his repeal drive after a Chapel Hill police sergeant ticketed him on April 4 for attaching a flyer to a pole near the Franklin Street post office.

The flyer advertised a "banquet for global peace and justice" later that night in Carrboro that ended up raising $2,500 for a variety of social justice causes, said Ose, who runs Lost City Music & Video.

A police officer saw Ose stapling a flyer to the pole and asked him to take it down. Ose refused.

"I said I was sorry, I couldn't do that, because I didn't think it was a just ordinance," he recalled.

The officer summoned his sergeant, Anthony Brooks, who issued the ticket when Ose again refused to remove the flyer. The ticket charged him with placing a sign or notice on a utility pole in violation of a city ordinance.

It was referring to 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."

Both officers were courteous, professional and surprised that someone was willing to spend time fighting the ordinance, said Ose, who added that he intends to contest the ticket in court on May 20.

The flyer ban is one of the most widely flouted ordinances in town, as a glance at any phone pole along Franklin and Rosemary streets would show. Ose is among the dozens of people who post announcements on them each day.

Many advertise political causes, but others promote businesses and concerts.

Town officials are just as energetic about removing them. The Public Works Department dispatches a landscaper each Sunday to strip flyers from phone poles and kiosks.

Postings in the kiosks are legal.

"We'd much rather that they be put there than stuck up on telephone poles or buildings," said Harv Howard, solid-waste services superintendent, who added that removal drives also precede major weekend events and festivals.

The town ordinarily maintains five kiosks, but it's been getting by with a couple less in recent years. Crews removed them during Streetscape sidewalk work.

Officials do intend to replace them - and the wooden kiosks that still remain elsewhere along Franklin Street - with steel-framed models designed to look better and stand up to vandals.

A public works crew will install the first steel kiosk next week on North Columbia Street, said Curtis Brooks, the town's urban forester.

The steel kiosks are being built by a Durham fabricator who charged the town $950 for the first one.

"If, as we anticipate, people feel it's an improvement over the older ones, we'll go ahead with the other five," Brooks said.

But while Ose said more kiosks are welcome, he still thinks the council should repeal the flier ban.

"The utility poles exist," he said. "What else are they really used for? They're a natural venue for free speech."

Ose's challenge to the flyer ban comes as officials are considering changes to another section of town law that also regulates signs.

The review - and a parallel enforcement suspension - began following September's "Woe to Our Enemies" flap involving East Franklin Street restaurant owner Scott Maitland and the town's Inspections Department.

Inspectors made Maitland take down a banner expressing his views on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

They said it was too large, but the order drew fierce protests because it came while three council members were in the process of complaining to Horton about the banner's message.

Officials subsequently agreed that parts of the sign law are vulnerable to challenge, and are in the process of scheduling a hearing to gather advice on how to change it.

The president of the American Civil Liberties Union's Chapel Hill-Carrboro chapter, Mark Dorosin, said the flyer ban might raise similar issues.

While court cases say local governments can impose reasonable "time, place and manner" restrictions on speech, they frown on any attempt to regulate content.

Since the flyer ban refers specifically to advertising, its wording could signal a content restriction, Dorosin said.

The code has one other potential problem, because it allows Horton to waive the posting ban for "temporary signs."

"What does that mean, and what is he basing that exercise of discretion on? If it's content based, it's constitutionally suspect," Dorosin said. "Anything that creates a content-based restriction, where the problem is the message rather than the form the message is being delivered in, I would say creates First Amendment problems at the least."

Petition for the revision or repeal of Chapel Hill Ordinance Sec. 16-3. (Placing notices, signs on utility poles, trees, prohibited; exception.)

Statement to Chapel Hill Town Council, April 8, 2002

Good evening, Mayor Foy and members of the Council.

My name is Erik Ose, and I’d like to respectfully request that the Town Council examine an existing city ordinance, Sec. 16.3 of the Code of Ordinances, in order to revise or repeal it.

I've been a resident of Chapel Hill for the past twelve years, and owned a business in town for the past five. During that time, I've always been one of those people you see around town hanging flyers and posters up for one cause or another. I've probably hung tens of thousands of flyers in Chapel Hill while I've lived here, so flyering is something I know a little about.

Last Thursday I was hanging posters on Franklin Street for a Banquet for Global Peace and Justice that was being held that night at the New Century Center in Carrboro. This event was sponsored by three local groups, the UNC Campaign to End The Cycle of Violence, the Triangle Free Press, and the Internationalist Books and Community Center. It drew over 150 local peace and social justice activists together for a night proclaiming that another world is truly possible if we dare to dream. Celebrating the idea of a world free from violence, hatred, and injustice. This banquet raised over $2500 towards those goals.

I was in front of the Franklin Street post office, and had just finished stapling two posters for the event onto a telephone pole there at the corner. A visible spot, where the poster was likely to be seen be many people walking or driving by. It's irrelevant, really, what the poster I was hanging said. It could have been raising awareness about any number of other causes, or it could have been a poster for my own business, or for one of the several other small, locally owned businesses that I occasionally hang signs for, as a gesture of support for other small stores like my own. The fact that it was a political message I was distributing and not a commercial one just makes what happened next even more disturbing.

I was questioned, detained, and eventually cited by a Chapel Hill police officer and sergeant for the simple act of having stapled this poster up to a telephone pole, and refusing to tear the poster down when told to by the officer. The officers were very polite and courteous to me, and explained to me that they really didn't want to write me up, they were just doing their jobs and enforcing Chapel Hill city ordinance Section 16.3, which prohibits the placing of signs or notices on utility poles. I didn't feel threatened or intimidated by them at any time during our encounter. But the fact remains that I was detained, cited, and threatened with arrest and being hauled before a magistrate if I was seen putting any more flyers on telephone poles that day.

Both officers said they were surprised by my willingness to waste my time and money by being written up and having to go to court over this issue, when I could have simply done what everyone else they've ever caught in the act of postering on telephone poles does, namely, torn my own posters down, apologize, and go on to the next corner to put up more posters once the officers backs were turned.

But you know, who's fooling who here. Why should a citizen have to play cat and mouse games with the police when they're simply trying to publicize a worthy cause, or advertise their business, or speak out about an issue they care about by making a sign and posting it somewhere where their neighbors might actually see it?

This is a city ordinance that doesn't make sense. Anyone who thinks about it a minute should realize it's ill conceived, and needs revision or outright repeal.

Why does this ordinance exist in the first place? Was it drafted for aesthetic purposes? Is it designed to improve the town’s appearance by keeping utility poles bare? If so, it’s accomplishing exactly the opposite of what it was intended to do. Take a look at any one of the utility poles downtown located at major intersections. What looks better, a cold, barren pole littered with jagged, torn scraps of paper, or one covered with colorful, exciting posters representing the free exchange of ideas that’s so central to the very idea of what Chapel Hill is about?

Was it drafted to protect the utility poles from the ravages of staples and thumbtacks? Are the poles somehow in danger of falling down once a critical mass of staples accumulate on them? If so, the ordinance isn’t working. Look at the poles. They’re covered with staples. Citizens put flyers up on utility poles every day, and they’re going to keep doing it, unless there’s a cop on every corner ready to arrest them.

The question is, it is a sensible allocation of the town’s limited public resources to have the public works department relentlessly tearing down any posters that pop up on utility poles every few days? I don’t know how many public works employees are assigned to this task, or how frequently they carry out this duty, but they must be working pretty hard. Flyers get taken down from utility poles in the downtown area almost as soon as they’re posted. There’s a utility pole that sits right outside my store on Rosemary Street. Every day I post a flyer for my store on that pole, and lately, every next day, I come to work to find that flyer torn down. Now isn’t that a little ridiculous?

As a small business owner, I’m upset. Is Chapel Hill serious about maintaining the quality of life here by fostering a climate of support for small, locally owned businesses over huge, faceless, national chains? If so, this ordinance needs changing. An important real world effect of this ordinance is to make it harder for small businesses who can’t afford expensive newspaper and radio advertising campaigns to stay in business in Chapel Hill. Grassroots advertising by small, locally owned businesses in town is something we should be encouraging, not discouraging.

As a taxpayer, I’m upset. There’s got to be a better way for the town to keep the appearance of utility poles regulated, one that uses a little less of town employees time and energy. Maybe if the town cleared the poles once a month, or once a week, like they do the kiosks.

With respect to the kiosks, some people might say that by virtue of the town maintaining two kiosks in the downtown area where flyers can legally be posted, the town has every right to declare utility poles off limits to public posting. Let’s leave aside the fact that I can remember when there were no less than five kiosks downtown devoted to this very purpose.

I think the Council needs to take a hard look at whether speech is truly free if it’s restricted to one or two little areas in town. On any given day in Chapel Hill, people are on the move, going about their daily lives, and not necessarily stopping by the town-owned poster kiosks for their daily appointment with free speech. Bottom line, that’s why people put flyers on utility poles, because it’s where their messages have a realistic chance of being seen and heard.

That’s why I think the Council needs to revise or repeal this ordinance, because any time you restrict free speech, we would all hope it’s being done because of other considerations that are very important to the public welfare. And in this case, I can’t see the reasoning behind maintaining this ordinance as it’s now written, or how it helps makes Chapel Hill a better town to live in.