SHELBURNE, Vt. (WCAX) – A New York business faces possible fines for violating Vermont’s billboard ban. It comes as residents some residents we spoke to are getting fed up with the half-a-dozen signs along Route 7.
“I was really shocked to see this,” said Kaye Alexander of Charlotte, who reached out to WCAX after seeing our story about the billboards last month and noticing nothing has been done to deal with them. “They’re huge and they’re ugly and they’re illegal.”
Raymond Rice put up the signs on hay wagons – six in Vermont and six in New York — for his Westport business, Rice Farm and Tires. “I don’t think we’re violating the law,” he told WCAX.
But Vermont officials disagree. The Vermont sign law prohibits signs on somebody’s property for a business or an activity conducted somewhere else. And as I understand it, that’s the case with the sign on the hay wagon,” said John Kessler with the state’s Travel Information Council.
Vermont 57 years ago became the first state to ban roadside billboards. There are some exceptions — “official business directional signs” are ads but the state allows them in specific areas. Box trucks with a logo are ok but only if they’re transporting goods. “That’s allowable because it’s being used for that purpose,” Kessler explained. But signs like Rice’s are not allowed. Kessler believes the state has contacted him to remove them.
“He said he was going to review his paperwork and he hasn’t called me back. So, I guess we’re just going to continue,” Rice said. He says the state called weeks ago but that’s it. He also hasn’t heard any word of the $50 fine laid out in the billboard law.
Meanwhile, some locals like Alexander want them gone. “I think the law needs to be upheld and he needs to remove them,” she said.