TruckAds, a company that, well, puts ads on the side of trucks recently received a letter from th City of Austin making the company aware of its prohibition of mobile billboards and the fact that, after June 16, it’ll be a crime to place one on a vehicle and drive it around.
The prohibition has been in place since June 16, 2008 but June 16 of this year is the final date a mobile billboard can exist in the city. Needless to say, TruckAds isn’t happy and is labeling the city’s move a limitation of free speech.
We can see both points of view. Advertising, in most cases, should be afforded the same principles of free speech as described in the Constitution. Yes, we’ve mostly banned cigarette advertising and heavily regulated other forms. But outright bans are limited.
Yet, who really wants a landscape littered with advertising? Already New York and Las Vegas, among others, have become one giant advertisement. Do we want that everywhere?
And besides, Austin’s weird. And they like to keep it weird. So this ban…well, it just seems normal for the city.
Thoughts?
