Do you think that landowners have an easy time getting billboards removed from their properties?  Think again.  A difficult reality confronts a landowner intending retirement and removal of a billboard which has an expired lease.

When landowners no longer want their properties cluttered by billboards and demand the billboards be retired, their efforts are typically met with strong opposition.  The standard practice of billboard companies is to ignore demands of landowners to remove billboards on their properties with expired leases.  As a result, well-meaning landowners find they need to sue to get action and, worse yet, they get sued.

Although unintimidated landowners prevail in legal actions against an alleged billboard company “right” to retain unwanted billboards on properties owned by others, not all landowners are up to costs and stresses involved in a legal battle.  Bullying threats of litigation have a chilling effect on a landowner considering retiring a billboard.  Billboard companies, however, fare quite well during protracted legal proceedings by continuing to receive billboard advertising income.

To discourage unfounded billboard company lawsuits when landowners want to eliminate billboards having expired leases from their properties, Protect Scenic 101 (PS101) has drafted an amendment to clarify CA billboard law.  Sponsorship has been requested of CA Assemblyman Cunningham.

Protect Scenic 101 is a non-profit volunteer group seeking to facilitate billboard retirement in this County along Highway 101, our County’s highly scenic and most traveled corridor.  Assisting landowners facing litigation for retiring billboards is to further this goal, and accomplishing it involves fund-raising.

It is important to note that San Luis Obispo County is bearing the brunt of billboard company attention on the Central Coast, as Monterey, Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties banished most billboards.  Also, important to consider is that travelers now rely on social media for information, not outmoded billboards. This makes the case for each of us to let billboard advertisers know that their ads deter you from patronizing their businesses.