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Tuesday, January 18, 2000
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Group wants to ban new billboards
Associated Press
RENO -- A citizens group is organizing an effort to ban new billboards that are blocking views of the Sierra Nevada with advertisements for everything from God to liposuction.
"One of the reasons people move here is scenic beauty," said Jim Pilzner, a former Reno city councilman who has joined the anti-billboard effort.
Billboard companies are asking the Reno City Council to expand areas where they can erect new billboards.
A new series of signs with religious themes received attention recently but Pilzner said he's most upset by a rash of big-bellied advertisements for liposuction surgery.
"I don't think liposuction billboards contribute to scenic beauty. If we're serious about making Reno a destination resort area, we ought to start trying to class it up," he said.
A spokesman for the outdoor-advertising industry said billboard companies merely are trying to regain ground they have lost since the Reno ordinance last was updated 11 years ago.
Since then, companies have lost 70 billboards that didn't conform to the ordinance, said Greg Ferraro, senior vice president of R&R Partners. That's because the ordinance requires landowners to remove nonconforming signs before they can develop their property.
When the council updated the ordinance 11 years ago, it did not intend to reduce the number of billboards in the city, Ferraro said.
Sign companies hired Ferraro last week after billboard company executives and anti-billboard citizens clashed in a council subcommittee that has been meeting for more than a month to review the ordinance.
Last week, two representatives of Donrey Outdoor Advertising made a pitch to Washoe County Airport Authority trustees to erect eight to 12 billboards at Reno/Tahoe International Airport and two to three billboards at Reno-Stead Airport. Donrey Outdoor is a division of the same company that operates the Review-Journal.
The Reno airport now has only one billboard, at the corner of Plumb Lane and Terminal Way, and there are none at Stead.
Reno now allows new billboards only in areas zoned for industrial use. The industry is pushing the city to also allow new signs in most of the city's commercial zones.
"They are a strong, strong lobby. We've got our work cut out for us," said Doug Smith, one of 10 founding members of the anti-billboard group.
"The removal of billboards, we feel, would foster economic development and tourism, attract new businesses, improve scenery, improve motorists' safety, and protect property values."
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Printable version of this story
This illuminated billboard over Wells Avenue in Reno is an example of the visual pollution billboards create, according to a Reno group that is campaigning to ban the form of outdoor advertising in the city.
Photo by Associated Press
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