Doh. Just when it looked like there weren’t tons of posters, signs, and wheatpastes around the neighborhood like in the past, DC Government just issued a ruling that most signs can be up for 6 months. Before they were limited to 60 days for signs that expressed an opinion but no limit to signs for candidates running in office in the future. Not anymore.
The ANSWER Coalition, a self-described anti-imperialist anti-war (and apparently pro-Qaddafi) group, is the worst of the postering groups, regularly leaving up signs for months and even years after events. This is one of my pet peeves. They also put posters on utility boxes and other city-owned property, often with wheatpaste, which is hard to remove. After much complaining by citizens, they seemed to get the message and got better at taking signs down.
But ANSWER and the another group, the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation sued the city over the rules. A US District Court judge agreed, saying that the two separate rules before were unconstitutional. He suggested the city make new rules, which they did: 180 days for any sign for an election candidate or an opinion. The city’s rule does means that signs must be down 30 days after an event. However, they can be up for 6 months now. That stinks. Get ready to see lots more posters all over the place.
