Tire Shop Owner Removes Billboards After State Warning

The owner of a New York tire shop has removed advertisements he put up along Vermont roadsides after officials warned him that the banners violated the state’s billboard ban.

Raymond Rice said he took down the signs on Thursday. They’d hung for weeks on half a dozen hay wagons in Chittenden and Addison counties, drawing the ire of some Vermonters who believed the ads violated the state’s 1968 billboard ban.

The Vermont Agency of Transportation agreed. This week, the agency sent Rice, of Westport, N.Y., a letter that gave him 14 days to remove the banners — after which time he’d be fined.

Rice relented, a day after Seven Days’ story on the signs hit newsstands.

“It’s about advertising, not polarizing,” Rice said on Thursday afternoon.

He said it was a little challenging removing the signs in the middle of a snowstorm, but he made quick work of it once he got started. A Ferrisburgh town employee confirmed the billboards had disappeared.

The signs began appearing in Vermont in December and had been posted along roadways in Charlotte, St. George, Ferrisburgh, West Addison, Bridport and Orwell.

They were draped on unused hay wagons on rural properties, which Rice argued meant they were not billboards under the law. They were.

While he still thinks he and the property owners who hosted the signs have free speech rights, he said he never wanted to anger Vermonters with the displays. WCAX-TV also had reported on the signs.

Rice is actually planning to capitalize on the publicity with a social media campaign that asks people to weigh in on whether they supported his right to put up the signs in the first place.

He’s considering a promotion that gives a discount on an oil change to people who mention the signs, he said.