State transportation officials are upset about another act of vandalism linked to local clothing and video company UDOWN.
The latest instance: a QR code sticker, roughly 16 square feet in size, covering the top left corner of the Vineyard Boulevard exit sign on the H-1 freeway, seen by westbound drivers before the Keeaumoku Street overpass.
When scanned by a cellphone, the black-and-white code sends the phone’s Web browser to the UDOWN website, whose trademark "U" with a downward arrow has been used in several acts of graffiti recorded and posted on the company’s YouTube webpage.
Department of Transportation spokesman Dan Meisenzahl said it’s a publicity stunt that the company claims to have nothing to do with.
"I don’t know how UDOWN gets away with it," he said. "Whoever’s putting that stuff up, they’re putting themselves at risk. If they fall, they’re putting whoever’s below them at risk."
And if a driver hits the person who falls, he will have to live knowing that he killed somebody, he said, adding, "It’s a very selfish thing."
A UDOWN representative said by email that company officials did not know about it until someone told them about the sticker on Thursday. The representative said they were sorry the DOT had to waste time and resources to remove it.
"If we could be of any help, please let us know," the representative, who did not give his name, said.
Meisenzahl said crews will use a cherry picker to reach the sticker on the 180-square-foot sign that is 17 feet above the freeway. The work will require the state to close two right lanes of the freeway and the H-1 onramp from Punahou Street from 10 a.m. to noon Monday, Meisenzahl said.
He didn’t have a cost estimate for the cleanup, but said the crew would have been replacing street signs that were knocked down or hit by vehicles.
A Police Department spokeswoman did not immediately have a comment Friday afternoon on the vandalism.
In 2006, the state Department of Transportation sent a letter to UDOWN, saying the company’s website encourages people to put UDOWN stickers on state highway signs and send in photos are posted on the website, according to a copy of the letter on the UDOWN website.
The company’s website has a disclaimer saying the company does not "aid, abet, solicit, or counsel" anyone in the vandalization of public or private property and asks people to "show some respect and courtesy" by not placing its stickers on another person’s property.
The website says the company started in 1999 on the foundation of "filming crazy antics and stunts whenever and wherever possible." Its name was derived from the question, "are you down?," when offering a dare, the website said.
The company’s YouTube page has numerous videos of people performing risky stunts or placing UDOWN logos in precarious locations, such as the University Avenue sign above H-1. In one daring video, two men cross a narrow wall high above the H-3 freeway to place a UDOWN sticker at the top of the facade to the Tetsuo Harano Tunnels.
Matt Ortiz, 28, who was visiting the skateboard park below the Keeaumoku Street overpass, has his own clothing company, Vers, and said he supports graffiti art that has a social message.
The UDOWN stickers can confuse drivers by looking like a U-turn sign or call their attention away from the road, he said.
"I can understand if it’s something that doesn’t conflict with public safety," he said. "I’m fine with them removing it."
"They’re creating more work for us in this cash-strapped age," said the Transportation Department’s Meisenzahl. "At the same time, they’re wasting taxpayer money. Whoever gets stuck in traffic Monday morning as we take that thing down … they can thank the idiots who put it up there."
