It all started when Raymond Rice tried to buy a new tire for his tractor. The Westport, N.Y., hay and cattle farmer headed to a Vermont store where, he said, a salesman quoted him $1,800 for a single tire.
When Rice learned he could purchase the same tire elsewhere for about $1,450, he thought the shop — which he declined to name — was ripping him off. So, Rice, whose haying operation was struggling, decided to go into the tire business himself. Last spring, the 52-year-old entrepreneur opened Rice Farm and Tires in a modest farm building not far from where he grew up in Westport. Its slogan: “We’ll get you a square deal on a round tire.”
To get the word out about his new venture, Rice began hanging large advertising banners on 8-foot-tall hay wagons stationed in fields along the roadside in New York. Then, in December and January, he started employing the same low-tech advertising strategy along roads in Charlotte, St. George, Ferrisburgh, West Addison, Bridport and Orwell. The strategy immediately struck some Vermont residents as a violation of the state’s long-standing ban on billboards.
“It was surprising, because you don’t see billboards for so long and suddenly there’s something that looks just like one,” said Scott Wilson, a writer from Charlotte.
The banners include the business’ name, telephone number and address. “Full Service Garage,” the signs read. “From Wheelbarrows to Wheel Loaders.”
Wilson said he took a picture of one and posted it online. The overwhelming response was that it violated not only the letter but the spirit of the law, he said. Wilson wrote to Rice and asked him to remove the “eyesore” but got nowhere, he said.
Vermont officials may have better luck. They agree the signs violate the ban on billboards and have asked Rice to take them down.
“It’s pretty straightforward,” said John Kessler, an attorney for the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. “The foundation of the law was to not have signs other than where the business is taking place.”
In 1968, the state banned highway billboards to reduce clutter and preserve views of the state’s natural beauty. Signs are still allowed on properties where a business is located, but that is clearly not the case with Rice’s hay wagons, Kessler said.
“Here are signs in Vermont for a business in New York,” he said. “It’s really that simple.”
State officials have ordered Rice to cover up or remove the signs from his six hay wagon locations in Vermont or face daily fines of $50 for each sign — or $300 a day.
Rice said he got a call weeks ago from the Vermont Agency of Transportation about the issue and this week received an official letter, which he’s reviewing. He said he can’t believe that a small business’ efforts to advertise have attracted the attention of state officials.
“I would think the State of Vermont has bigger fish to fry than my hay wagons,” Rice said last week from his shop, where he also lives.
Rice said his new business can only survive by getting the word out to his target market, farmers up and down the Champlain Valley. His shop is located on a rural road outside a sleepy town in the Adirondack Park, so he can’t count on drive-by traffic. It became even less accessible after flooding last summer washed out a road, requiring customers to drive several extra miles to reach him, he said.
Rice says he can’t afford radio or television ads and doubts farmers would respond to social media ads. The signs seemed to be an inexpensive, effective way to grab some farmer eyeballs.
“This is literally about survival,” Rice said.
The signs and the zip ties he uses to string them up cost about $300. But the real estate is free. In many cases, the farmers who host the signs are friends or customers who are just trying to help him out, he said.
“Farmers stick together,” Rice said. “Every single one of us is struggling.”
He said he understands why Vermonters want to keep their highways free of commercial clutter. He pointed to snow-covered Camel’s Hump, visible across Lake Champlain from his shop, and said he’d hate for that view to be marred.
But he argues that protecting bucolic views must be balanced with the rights of businesses and property owners.
“You can’t have these beautiful, open vistas and farm fields if there are no farms,” Rice said. “And without a tire guy, there are no farms.”
Like Wilson, Rick Kerschner considers the signs offensive. The Ferrisburgh resident spotted three of them on one wagon along Route 7, just a few hundred feet north of town hall.
“I live in Vermont because I love our views and I love the fact that we don’t have billboards,” Kerschner told Seven Days last week. “Every time I leave Vermont I’m perturbed by the billboards in our faces.”
Town officials and state lawmakers urged him to get in touch with VTrans, which enforces the billboard law. VTrans officials gave Rice 14 days to remove the signs or face “next steps,” according to emails from David Hosking, a project manager in VTrans District 5. Those steps could include fines levied by the VTrans Travel Information Council, a six-member board that mediates sign issues.
Rice hopes its doesn’t come to that. He admits he can be “mulish” but insists he’s not trying to be “that asshole in the community.”
“But at some point, everybody talks about wanting local business,” he said. “And if we can’t advertise, how are we supposed to be here?”
Rice contends that, unlike traditional stationary billboards, his are mobile — and therefore legal. He points out that they are temporary and will be taken down when the wagons are needed again for hay season.
He’s also done business at many of the farms hosting signs. Farmers or loggers don’t just drive their heavy machinery to a shop when they get a flat, he explained. The shop comes to them, and he and his employees have visited the farms to replace tractor tires, he said.
“It’s not me trying to cheat the system,” Rice said. “It’s me trying to advertise my business.”
Kerschner thinks Rice shouldn’t be the only one on the hook for his signs. The property owners on whose land they’re parked ought to be held to account, he said.
One of those property owners, Tim Van De Weert of Ferrisburgh, said it feels hypocritical for the state to line its highways with signs flashing clever messages to drivers while telling private property owners they can’t erect billboards. His family’s farm hosted roadside signs when he was a kid, and they had to be removed after the law went into effect.
“There’s a big difference between holes drilled in the ground and a wagon sitting on tires that can be moved,” Van De Weert said.
Ethan Gevry of Addison, who runs a firewood business in town, allowed Rice, a good friend, to park one of the wagons on his property for several weeks.
“Personally, I don’t see the harm in it, but apparently some do,” Gevry said.
He welcomed Rice’s entry into the tire industry because larger competitors are often short-staffed and sometimes take weeks to respond to service requests, he said. Still, he told Rice that if officials asked him to take the sign down, he would — and that’s exactly what happened.
The town’s zoning administrator got wind of complaints, researched the issue and asked Gevry to remove the signs. Gevry relayed the request to Rice, and he relocated the wagon to a farm a few miles down the road in West Addison.
The affair has generated several news stories, including in New York and on WCAX-TV. For a business trying to get off the ground and get name recognition, that’s not a bad thing, Gevry said.
“I told him that if you’ve gotta take all your signs down, which you’re gonna have to, you’re not out anything,” Gevry recalled. “You’ve got a pile of free publicity out of this that money can’t buy.”