Seattle tried this, from 1994 to just last year. Got sued over free speech. Lost. Cost the city over $100,000 defending itself on a dumb law over it. Law was overturned. Postering legal again here.

Personally, I'd rather read band flyers than nothing, it makes the daily walk interesting. Yuppies in Frisco (or maybe just dimwit politicians) might believe differently.

They see poster blight, I see poles full of notices about bands and shows. Some are pretty cool looking.

As for the whining noise about cleaning it up, do your farking job city workers. Thats what we pay you for. Shut up and pick the damn posters up, jeez. Like a tourist never threw a wrapper on the ground. They (city politicians) tried the same thing here (get the city workers to complain about it) when they said postering was a fire hazard. Like the city was ablaze every weekend with burning utility poles. Weak arguments that are not true just make a city public works dept look like whiners to the people that pay their salaries (the taxpayers).

Its hardly *asinine* if they are trying to clean the place up and handbills are high on the offenders list is it?

The government added a 15c tax to plastic bags here and its made one hell of a difference to the litter problem.

Hell, ban people putting crap under my windshield wipers or sticking stuff in the seal on my drivers-side window.

When I lived in Houston, you could park for 5 minutes and your car would sprout a tree's worth of flyers, busniness cards, and pamphlets. Oddly enough, most of them were for "Christian Psychics."

I'm glad I don't live there anymore.

Same problem here in Edinburgh, UK. Posters for nightclubs, upcoming gigs, etc. everywhere - even on the windows of disused shops. Makes the place look like shiat.

The ones that really get to me though are Socialist Worker posters. So much for being a party of the people, when they make the people's city look so crappy with their posters everywhere.

Why did I think the article title said 'handballs' and not 'handbills'?

OFF THE PIGS!!!! (Ever since that post came up about slang, I'm having flashbacks)

The biggest problem in SF is the 2:1 homeless:street corner ratio.

The only thing I don't like about this story is the Asinine tag. If you own a home you'd understand why this is so annoying. Apartments aren't as subjected to it as houses. I had 5 handbills and 1 large plastic bag left on my door yesterday.

/Rant

FREE BILL POSTERS!!!

/obvious

Those handbills all over the ground do a great job soaking up all the pee. SF has got more low life bums per square block then anywhere else. What was a great city is now the asshole of the earth. Thanks liberals.

I don't get how this is considered free speach. Can I graffiti some guys shop window as long as a City public work crew spends untold hours cleaning off the illegal missives....

/confused

I don't really mind handbills and menus on my windshield but handbills glued to building and poles needs to be controlled. I've street teamed for over a decade and I'm always respectful to "post no bills" signs.
Many of the posters are works of art but they really don't belong on poles and garbage cans. I think the licensing thing is a great idea and would go a long way towards making sure the posters only go where they are supposed to be.

What about free speech?
It has limits. I'm not saying you can't put up your poster/ handbill/ flyer. I'm just saying don't glue it to my house. Imagine if somebody came and glued a poster to your car one night. Would you consider that protected free speech?

Gaynoynj: I hate handbills and menus on my car. On my house would be far worse, but they don't belong on my car either.

Occassionally, when someone put one on my car in a parking lot, I've walked around picking them up from all the cars and throwing them in the trash. One time I returned them to the store they were advertising. I think I freaked out the owners enough to never hire someone to put out handbills again.

Why asinine? Most of the places that have these all over look ugly. It would be one thing to post a sign saying you are having an event, and then taking it down when the event is over. The problem is, most people never take the sign down. I've seen walls that have so many handbills on them that the layers are over an inch thick. It damages the wall or whatever they are posted to, and it shouldn't be allowed. If posting them is ok, why not just let people spraypaint their message on the wall? It's about the same thing. But of course people would call that vandalism.
City workers should not have to spend tons of time cleaning them up. Cleaning up litter is one thing, scraping layers of glued-on handbills and repairing the things they damage is a completly different thing.
If you want to advertise your event, go about it the legal way: put an ad in the newspapers, ask local businesses if you can hang a sign in their window, hand out flyers at other events that would have the type of people that would want to go to your event, etc.

I feel VERY strongly about freedom of speech.
I also feel VERY strongly about illegal bills.

You have a right to *personally* hold a sign or pass handbills. You have a right to *personally* speak your views. You have the right to place a sign in YOUR private property.

But you have NO right to place a sign on OUR collective property (lamp posts, medians) or SOMEONE ELSE's property (cars, walls, lawns, the power-company's poles).

You have the free speech right to say wat you want, but not by littering someone else's property!

and someone include all those political posters at election time. and these people don't even ask if they can put them out in front of the house. they did that here one time and i pulled it out as soon as the guy left and threw it out. seriously if people put shiat like that on my house or car, i'd have to make it very unpleasant for them, like a very large snarling dog, or a fully scented pet skunk or something.

I throw all bills left on my car on the ground. Yes, that is littering and yes, I am against littering.

But I more against crap being left on my car and I figure if Home Depot or wherever sees 50 flyers on the ground advertising Bill's Lawn Manicuring, they are more prone to do some damage to their business than I can.

I am getting really sick of the scum who throw those little bags filled with rocks on my driveway advertising various things. I am saving them up... for what purpose I don't know yet.

Asinine that it took this long. I have nothing against bills being posted -- I love seeing them when I'm out walking around. But I can't stand the people who stand in the middle of a busy street and hold everyone up by shoving papers at you advertising the local tanning salon or strip club. Take out an ad like a normal business or stand by the side of the road, but not in the middle of the sidewalk impeding everyone trying to go about their business.

And any flyers left under windshield wipers are going to fall victim to them as soon as the engine starts running. Putting them there in the first place should just be considered littering.

Every once in a while a singles-club company puts fliers on cars that are self-addressed, postage prepaid cards. I diligently go around the neighborhood, collect them, and mail them...hundreds of them.
If that won't make them stop, what will?

They can feel free to plaster my windshield wiper with advertisements.

I feel free to apply an adhesive of my choice to the back of these flyers and apply them to their storefront windows where they really belong.

Bah, handbills are a waste. Allow the hippy in me to surface for but a moment: paper is not in limitless supply. One day, we'll look back, and you'll all be sorry then... ;)

Sure, some of it is fun to look at, but that doesn't mean that it belongs. Just like female pop-vocalists, or e-mail spam. It's always amusing to read "punch thru hEr back walls with ur new manhood size rick steve" but that doesn't mean it's right.

There's a much better way for a club or venue to advertise upcoming events... on thier website.

I don't mind posters and such....if they take them down. But I despise all those ancient signs that people never bother to take down. They seem to scrape the poles around here every few months but that doesn't get everything. Iv'e seen yardsale signs that are almost a year old still handing off poles!

and I absolutely hate coming back to my car after running into a store and finding a bunch of ads under my wipers. It's annoying and a total waste. Or those stupid door tags. I got 8 a couple months ago for the same place....which happens to be the gym I already go to! I called and complained to the owner.

Arguing that you can post unlicensed posters on other people's buildings, cars, etc. through free speech is the asinine part.

I guess I can spraypaint my messages on peoples cars then, because I have a right to be heard as well.

hack

shiat hack, just stamp it into some idiot's forehead. Apparently free speech cannot by stopped by any other type of personal or public rights.

"I feel free to apply an adhesive of my choice to the back of these flyers and apply them to their storefront windows where they really belong."

Dattaway for president!

Handbills + wheat paste = papier mache'

Three years ago in my San Francisco neighborhood, they put in a Burger King. And ever since then, local fast-food-haters with too much time on their hands have protested the place by printing out these protest signs on 8x11 stickers and sticking them all over our neighborhood.

The irony, of course, is all the trash and pollution they're protesting is dwarfed by all the half-scraped-off stickers that are scattered all over our freakin' neighborhood.

Personally, I think this deserves the "Hero" tag. The person who submitted this must also be one of the individuals responsible for spamming my inbox with several hundred offensives a week.

Free speech? Maybe for those who know how to use it responsibly and respectfully. Seems like everything is "in your face" these days. I think it's strange how one right seems to rule over all others. Seems like the right to happiness has gone by the way side due to the right to free speech. Furthermore, speaking is done with your mouth, not handbills. If you have something to say about your quality of living or you feel infringed upon, get up and say something.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Says nothing about handbills. This is not the "press". The right was created to protect yourself from the government, not sell things. There is a HUGE difference here.

Today must be "Morons submit asinine articles" day.

Should just take the e-mail address at the bottom of the flyer and submit it for spam. Not that those sites exist.

Lost animal and children posters I respect, the rest get ripped down becasue I feel like it. I'm trying to remember where it was where the cops actually picked the fliers off the ground and would ticket the owner of the phone number on the flier for littering. Each flier counted as an offense.
Remember when Microsoft felt the need to put stickers down on NYC sidewalks, but facing a fine for each one placed?

Doccm9

Should just take the e-mail address at the bottom of the flyer and submit it for spam. Not that those sites exist.

Good idea!

Lost animal and children posters I respect, the rest get ripped down becasue I feel like it.

I do that too, especially to those "Lose weight now! Ask Me How!" ones all over payphones and gas pumps.

I'm trying to remember where it was where the cops actually picked the fliers off the ground and would ticket the owner of the phone number on the flier for littering. Each flier counted as an offense.
Remember when Microsoft felt the need to put stickers down on NYC sidewalks, but facing a fine for each one placed?

I thought that was IBM with their Linux thing, or did they both do it?

What has this world come to: HANDbill JOBS.