Opening credits for the vintage television series “Sex and the City” show an ad for the main character’s newspaper column stretched across the side of a bus.
Her larger-than-life figure in a slip dress is suggestive, but not any more so than the real ads nowadays on websites and magazine pages that picture bikinied babes bump-dancing.
If Mayor Kirk Caldwell has his way, residents and tourists could be exposed to images of Speedo-suited men, outsized burgers and fries, ambulance-chasing lawyers, chain-store goods, tax-season accountants, weight-loss pills, sodas, ultra-luxury resorts, discount furniture, Viagra and all sorts of products and services plastered on city buses.
Though some of these ads may be unseemly, they would pale against photos of fetuses accompanied by anti-abortion declarations, or racial invectives from fanatical groups that other cities have had to place on their buses.
Caldwell and other political leaders are fooling themselves if they think they will not confront First Amendment legal challenges if they sell ad displays on city buses but attempt to restrict their content.
It’s not just content that’s the problem here. The city should maintain the measure of visual sensitivity that has been a big asset for the islands. Hawaii’s billboard ban is a model for other cities concerned about the blight of outdoor advertising, according to a report Sunday by the Star-Advertiser’s Christine Donnelly.
Caldwell and his City Council allies argue that the ads will bring in needed revenue for TheBus system, as much as $8 million, they guesstimate.
No doubt $8 million would be a welcome addition to the $230 million operating costs of running the system.
But all that extra money would go up in smoke with the first lawsuit filed when the city — or the company it plans to hire to manage bus advertising — says no to a well-financed interest group spoiling for a free-speech fight.
The city’s legal eagles say the cat is already out of the bag as far as the state law that bars ads on vehicles unless the main purpose of the vehicle is to transport people or goods. They point to trolleys that have been advertising goods and services other than their own for years.
The problem, as is the case with many state laws, is lack of enforcement; no agency has been designated to regulate the law.
Government basically abandons enforcement to complaints filed by groups like The Outdoor Circle who don’t have the financial means to take on the businesses and crusading groups that do.
The federal courts have supported the state law because the ban has been applied equally. However, if the city were to sell ads on buses and pick and choose which ones to accept, the courts may not be as sympathetic.
Officials should weigh the uncertain revenue potential as well as the value of ad-free island vistas against the likelihood of long, nasty and expensive courtroom battles that could result in ugly visual clutter.
