A Complete Ban Would Be Overkill Keep Billboards Signs Are Informative, A Piece Of Americana.

Fri., June 11, 1999

Rebecca Nappi Interactive Edito

Children who torture and abuse animals might be crying for help. Maybe they are being abused themselves or feeling so angry they can only express it through the torture of kittens and puppies.

If they don’t get helped in time, they can grow into adults who abuse others.

Many of the most infamous serial killers abused pets; Ted Bundy swung cats around his head by their tails.

In a recent campaign, the Spokane County Domestic Violence Consortium warned of the link between pet abuse and partner abuse. The billboards showed children with pets and this caption: “A child that hurts an animal is an adult that hurts their partner.”

Those billboards on city and county streets certainly caught the attention of drivers. We’ll never know how many parents saw that billboard, thought of their children and got some help. Maybe they were young parents who don’t read newspapers, don’t watch TV news. But they do drive and see billboards.

Not all billboards serve the community good but some do. And that is just one of many reasons the plan to ban billboards in Spokane County (outside of city limits) is not a wise one.

Billboards are an important form of communication in our community. They smooth the way for commerce; you might not know about that tire sale otherwise. They help travelers find motels, gas, food.

And, billboard businesses add to the economic health of the county. At the hearing to discuss the ban, Gregor Klante, a partner with Sunset Outdoor Advertising, said if he had known the ban was coming, he would have taken his business elsewhere.

The argument that billboards ruin vistas falls apart a bit when you consider that most of the 200 billboards that would be affected already line congested roads. Consider East Sprague. There, billboards compete with sometimes garish business signs and giant balloons made in the shapes of cars, burgers and whatever else someone is trying to sell. The eye clutter already exists.

And don’t forget, adults, what you did while riding in cars as children. You looked at billboards. Remember those nifty Burma Shave signs?

Restrict the size and number of billboards allowed but don’t ban them completely.

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