Oct 31, 2006 5:51 pm US/Eastern
Billboard Company Sues NYC Over Sign Restrictions
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ―
A billboard company sued the city on Tuesday, saying a law that restricts private outdoor advertising near parks and highways while exempting the city's own commercial signs is illegal.
The lawsuit, filed by OTR Media Group Inc. in Manhattan's state Supreme Court, says the law imposes an illegal restraint on trade and violates the company's rights to equal protection and free speech.
The OTR lawsuit attacks Local Law 31, passed in 2005 by the City Council and signed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. OTR's papers say the law creates permit requirements for commercial advertising signs that impose a practical ban on all new privately owned signs and threaten many existing ones.
In brief, the law bans signs within 900 feet and within view of arterial highways or within 200 feet and within view of public parks. The law affects private advertising near 72 major roadways and bridges and more than 1,000 parks, OTR's court papers say.
At the same time, the court papers say, the city, which owns and rents thousands of commercial advertising signs to raise revenue, is exempt from the new requirement. OTR wants the court to declare the distance requirements illegal and to bar the city from enforcing them.
City law department spokeswoman Kate Ahlers said Tuesday her agency had not received the legal papers and she could not comment.
OTR also sued Cemusa Inc., a company based in Spain, that won a 20-year, multibillion-dollar contract to build bus shelters, newsstands and public toilets in the city and has the exclusive right to post commercial advertising on them.
The city awarded the contract to Cemusa to bring some aesthetic order to its streets by providing thousands of bus shelters and newsstands and installing 20 public toilets.
The city will receive at least $1.3 billion in advertising revenue from Cemusa in return, OTR's court papers note.
A Cemusa spokeswoman, Katie Schwab, said she had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.
OTR says the number of private signs will decrease because of the law. It says this will not only limit work opportunities for union members who install and maintain the signs but also will have a negative impact on small businesses in the city.
The CEO of New York-based OTR, Ari Noe, said in a statement released by lawyer Daniel Alter, "The city has violated our state Constitution's guarantees of freedom of speech and equal protection in order to monopolize the outdoor advertising business."
Noe said it was "necessary to take legal action against the city's overreaching" to protect OTR, labor unions, small businesses and consumers.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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