Earlier this month, we reported on the seasonal paring of the shoes from the utility wires above 11th and Pike. Tuesday afternoon, CHS witnessed what appears to be a new Pike/Pine harvest. Workers were spread out through the neighborhood using various implements of destruction — including hammers, chisels, and, in one case, a fireaxe and a boombox soundtrack — to remove layer upon layer of old rock show, club night, help wanted, and lost dog posters from corner utility poles. A few of them identified themselves as workers for Poster Giant. A few of them told CHS to get lost.
SPOTED: couple dudes taking down some posters with a FIREFIGHTING AXE. and a boombox. capitol hiiiiillll pic.twitter.com/kRbi0WdBZS
— Jack C (@enth) October 26, 2016
While we’ve seen poles cleared here and there in the past, we’ve never seen anything like Tuesday’s old poster harvest. We’ve checked with the City Light and Seattle Public Utilities about the rules covering utility pole postering to ask if there has been some kind of rule change but were told the laws haven’t been updated since “the Nickels administration.” In short, “posters can be hung without a permit – no permit fees are required.” As for taking them down, “the person or organization placing the signs is responsible for removing the signs” and “city forces may remove expired signs at any time, but can collect costs only for those signs the City removes after the 10 day grace period.”
“The City encourages self-policing and removal of expired posters so that City forces can be used on other priorities,” the “removal process” description concludes.
We’re told we’ll have to check in with yet another city department to find out if there have been any complaints that triggered the clean-up. We’ll update if we ever hear back from SDOT. We also checked in with Capitol Hill-headquartered Poster Giant but haven’t heard back from them, either.
I guess there’s no hope that anything anytime soon will be done about this poster blight that plagues the neighborhoods. It makes the neighborhood look cheap and like scheiß.
I’m glad you’re speaking out about the scourge of being informed about cultural and political and community events. Best not waste your time addressing red herring issues like homelessness.
I agree, Joseph. If the postering regulations were adhered to, there wouldn’t be much of a problem, but they are widely ignored, and the result is the visual blight you see on our streets. The City does nothing to enforce the regulations, nor do they do clean up of the poles with months-years of old posters.
The only reason PosterGiant occasionally removed posters is so they can put up more of them. They are primarily responsible for all the blight, and they are profiting even as they mess up the neighborhood.
There was a brief poster ban back in the 90’s, and it made the neighborhood look so sterile and boring. I much prefer the posters. It gives the streetscape character. You want a streetscape with no mess, no posters, etc? There are lots of nice suburban outdoor malls to visit (or even live near) — try Mill Creek Town Center, Redmond Town Center, etc.
I don’t actually see these posters as visual blight, but neighborhood character. It’s not as if empty telephone poles are all that attractive, either.
If you don’t like the posters on telephone polls go live in the suburbs, I’m sure the Church’s pancake feeds don’t use such tactics and those of us who moved to capitol hill for it’s artsy rough around the edges gayness can have our neighborhood back. :)
Agree 100% with Joseph. On Friday, I saw one guy pulling down posters from a telephone pole. He just let everything pile up on the ground. He later removed the larger, intact pieces of paper from the sidewalk, but left a huge pile of confetti behind.
That’s called littering. That’s illegal. Next time this happens, I’ll be calling 911. Feel free to do the same.
The visual blight wouldn’t be so bad if Poster Giant actually followed the sign ordinance. Unfortunately, they’ve built a business on criminal activity.
According to the sign ordinance: “Posters over posters are not allowed. Posters can be only one layer thick. This avoids build-up of posters.”
It’s their violation of this that bugs me the most. They don’t want to pay the cost of removing every poster when they hang new posters, so we end up with an inch-thick accretion of posters on every traffic and utility pole. That looks really shitty.
Agree with Robert. The postering regulations also stipulate that a poster must be removed when the event advertised has occurred, or after 30 days, whichever is sooner. This part of the regulations is universally ignored.
There seems to be a basic disagreement here as to whether old, outdated posters (the majority of them) add “character” to the neighborhood, or whether they are a visual blight. Never the ‘twain shall meet.
Posters get covered up so fast. They get covered before they even happen. I can’t imagine any poster 30 days past. Just saying…
poster giant SUCKS
Polite Society is the postering company you want to use. They don’t tell you to get lost when you ask them a question. I used PG for a long time and I just couldn’t do it anymore. Not that they don’t do a good job, but they aren’t about community in any way shpae or form and I prefer to give my $ to a company that thinks about my neighborhood personally.
I’ve heard all those staples cause serious tire problems…. mostly for bicycles!
One person’s blight is another person’s character and art. We try to make every poster that we have control over the design (sometimes the artists makes us use their’s) a piece of art. We pay tons of $ each year to create small 11 X 17 pieces of art across the city. I love it. Agreed, the poster ban made our city look pretty bad.
Do you really think having torn up posters which wave in the wind on utility poles gives “character” to a neighborhood rather than make it look trashy?
I don’t think that’s how they generally are. I walk up and down the streets every single day as I don’t drvie. That’s not generally how it looks like at least where I go.
I wish they’d clean up the residual mess left behind on the sidewalks from their “cleaning up.” Walking down Pike this morning it was a soggy papery mess.
Tell them about it. They won’t care, but you can try.
http://postergiant.net/contact/
Email and Phone number is there. Agree, if you’re going to tear down all the posters, which is good and obviously necessary, you gotta clean it up. That’s where they could get in trouble for littering.
If you don’t like the posters on telephone polls go live in the suburbs, I’m sure the Church’s pancake feeds don’t use such tactics and those of us who moved to capitol hill for it’s artsy rough around the edges gayness can have our neighborhood back. :)
So, you think it’s “artsy” to have months old posters flapping in the breeze. You evidently do not care what your neighborhood looks like. And I see you giving “attitude” to the suburbs as if it’s a horrible place to live.
The suburbs /are/ a horrible place to live. I’ll take the posters over the strip malls any time.
The easiest way to remove them is with a weedeater and a shop vac. No mess left behind.
Where are you plugging in your shop vac?
Just reminded of the one time I put up posters for a show – Rocky Horror at the Egyptian (3rd Sat of every month plus one 10/29 this month- shameless plug although I’m not on cast anymore). We’d put them up and someone came by ripped them down and covered the poles with their ad. I note we only put one on each pole and this person put their ad top to bottom all around. A fellow cast mate confronted the person and was told “fuck you, we’re Poster Giant and this is our area, fuck off.” Asshole.