Winnipeg Manitoba is considering a $400-450 annual licensing fee for digital billboards to cover “ongoing costs for monitoring and enforcement or the operation and use of the digital sign over its lifespan.”  Insider sees a worrisome trend of cities raising taxes and fees on out of home advertisers.  We wrote earlier this week about the Baltimore billboard tax.   We’ll write soon about New York City’s regulatory shakedown.

New Haven Independent has an update on a double-sided 230 square foot New Haven digital billboard which caused a fuss.  Turns out the billboard’s owner Alex Churilov did everything right.  He went through proper channels, met with city staff, reviewed 20 locations with city planners, selected a site which complied with the existing sign code, received a permit and then built the sign.  Now the local politicians are backtracking on their claims that he had no permit.  The sign has multiple local businesses which want to advertise.  Insider loves sign owner Alex Churilov’s response when a local alderman tried to bully him by saying he didn’t have permits: “I have all the permits.  I comply with all the regulations that the city mandates so I don’t know what else they are asking me to do.”  The town may revise its sign code.

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