Business - Economy Signs of the Times Cheap, illegal roadside signs grow in recession

By Jeff Kunerth Orlando Sentinel ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- The signs cluster on the street corners like day laborers looking for work: They're selling carpet cleaning, tree trimming, air-conditioning repair, day care, website design, Google seminars. At the traffic lights, they offer passing motorists cheap health insurance, cash for junk cars, help with bankruptcy, the chance to stop foreclosure, the opportunity to make big money from home. This is the intersection where the underground economy meets the recession: grass-roots advertising for people looking for a way to make a little extra money or a fast buck. The scam artists commingle with the truly desperate. That sign for a "3/2 Investor Home 39k Ca$h" could be some poor soul losing his house or an unlicensed real-estate broker. The signs for custom T-shirts or business cards or banners -- or the signs for signs -- could be the only way a printing business can stay afloat or somebody trying to make a living without an occupational license. To consumers, the signs suggest buyer beware. To Alex Rueda, they are a blight on the landscape, a hazardous distraction to moving traffic and an unabashed mockery of the sign ordinances of Orange County that prohibit "bandit" signs on public right of way. "They know putting these signs up is illegal," said Rueda, 42, an Orange County code-enforcement officer. "They assume nobody is going to come after them." And in many cities and counties, they may be right. It is a time-consuming and often futile task for code enforcement to remove the illegal signs, only to have a new group reappear the next day. Orange code-enforcement officers picked up 8,961 signs in May, up from 7,702 signs in April. "This is a huge, huge problem," said Robert Spivey, manager of Orange County Code Enforcement. "The problem is so big, they could do nothing but pick up signs. A person or business can put up 1,000 signs a day." The same is true across the state, said Terry Suggs, president of the Florida Association of Code Enforcement Inc. "It's a never-ending battle, a circle I wish we could break," said Suggs, an Alachua County official. Every year, the code-enforcement association holds an "Operation Sign Sweep" day in which cities, towns and counties cleanse the landscape of illegal signs. Last year, 50 jurisdictions removed 16,000 signs in one day. The bane of code enforcement is the boom for sign companies. Business is up 25 percent to 30 percent in recent years at Fast Signs in Orlando, fueled largely by the collapsing housing market. "Especially with all the foreclosures over the past few years, we've definitely seen an increase," said general manager Kris Lepicier. State law makes illegal signs in a public right of way a second-degree misdemeanor. Fines vary from county and municipality. In Orange County, it's $150 per illegal sign. But in Orange, as well as most places, standard practice is to issue a warning and give the person some time to remove the sign voluntarily. If the warning is ignored, the person can be given a citation, required to appear before a magistrate and face fines as high as $500 a day for each sign. But it takes time to track down a person and an address from a phone number on a roadside sign. In Orange County, 38 code-enforcement officers devote one day a week to removing illegal signs. Only one investigates the people behind signs. "That's me," Rueda said. "I'm the Sign Guy." On Monday, Rueda went before the county's magistrate to get fines levied against two illegal sign owners. The same day, he caught a man planting yellow house-for-cash signs and confiscated 65 of them. The county's recycling dumpster where he tossed the signs would be full by Friday. On Tuesday, he picked up signs from the same "bankruptcy" and "we buy homes" business that was fined the day before. "At times, it's frustrating," he said. Rueda said most of the repeat and prolific violators are large businesses engaged in something shady. They know the rules and how to cover their tracks. "They are doing everything they can to make money and looking for ways not to get caught," he said. But not all the signs on the side of the road are from unlicensed businesses, fly-by-night scam artists or people trying to make a little untaxed income. Some belong to folks who have something legitimate to sell or rent. For them, the standard yard-sale-sized signs are a cheap and effective way to attract customers. There's the guy renting out two rooms in his house to help pay his mortgage. He has been doing it for 10 years, using newspaper ads and Craigslist, but he says the signs work better and cost less. His signs are distinct with their hand-lettering in black paint: "Room 4-rent, lux 4/3 pvt. bath pool/cable/Int. $475 mo + utilities." "Room 4-rent" doesn't want his name used. Nobody with roadside signs called for this story would give his or her name. Most hung up when they found out the caller wasn't interested in selling a junk car or buying a home with cash. He said he has had his signs out for about four months and has had more than 40 calls. But the caliber of caller isn't as high as those from other forms of advertising, he said. It takes a ton of signs to attract the number of people necessary to find the one guy he can trust inside his house. "It's not that easy," he said. "You have to put up a whole bunch. You can't just put up one or two. People steal the signs. If you put up 10 signs, sometimes they last a week, sometimes three days." Room 4-rent, who lives outside Alex Rueda's jurisdiction, said he has never been contacted by code enforcement about his signs, but he understands the need to regulate, restrict and remove the roadside signs: "If you didn't take them away, there would be thousands of signs everywhere." Published: Mon, Jul 5, 2010

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