The issue:
Public event signage
WE SAY:
Event organizers should arrange to take them down when they're done
The corner of Cleveland and Buckley Avenues is one of Squamish's highest traffic locations - and the bare lot is a natural magnet for signs of all kinds.
Sadly, there don't seem to be any rules on when those signs are supposed to come down.
A sign advertising a concert or play can sometimes stay up for weeks or even months after the event it's promoting has come and gone. This week, four signs were up on that corner - three of them promoting events that had already happened.
This is an appeal to public groups who use the high-traffic corner to advertise their events: please, please, please make sure taking the sign down is somebody's job. It's such a simple task - and the failure to carry it out makes Squamish look unnecessarily bush-league. A visitor who sees a sign advertising a past event - especially if the event is long past - sees a town that doesn't seem to care about its image.
Sadly, Squamish's most out-of-date billboard is also our largest, in a hugely high-traffic location - right on Hwy. 99 in front of the rapidly-rising Sea to Sky Adventure Centre. The 20-some-foot-tall sign - which stood for more than two years with our old, copyright-infringing "Heart of 2010" logo flying proudly in the face of VANOC - was replaced in early January with an equally-massive sign advertising the "Waves of Compassion" tsunami benefit concert.
That concert came and went 10 weeks ago - and while we're proud of the community for raising $40,000 at that event, we don't think it needs to still be there. In fact, it looks more than a little bush league to be advertising an event that's more than two months past to tens of thousands of vehicles that pass that sign every day.
Perhaps those responsible for the sign could either update the sign with a link to Squamish Humanity Village's current efforts - a good use for the high-profile real estate - or get one of the construction workers buzzing around the site to just cut it loose.
It's the little details that people remember, after all.
