via Holiday Inn ‘Green’ Signage Yields $4.4M Savings Annually · Environmental Leader · Green Business, Sustainable Business, and Green Strategy News for Corporate Sustainability Executives.

via BBC NEWS | UK | Anger over tourism signage policy.

Proposition D – the most controversial measure on an uncharacteristically short, dull San Francisco ballot – would allow the signs on Market Street between Fifth and Seventh streets, and a percentage of the proceeds would be used to fund youth cultural and arts education and to build a ticket booth at Hallidie Plaza.

Supporters said the signs would provide a spark to a downtrodden neighborhood. But opponents said the notion that big, unattractive signs could do what decades of City Hall plans haven’t done is ridiculous.

“We always thought it would be very close,” said David Addington, owner of the Warfield Building, who’s been pushing Prop. D. “Signs are a very divisive and scary issue for San Franciscans. We always knew the more people knew about our measure, the more they would like it.”

Proposition E – to prohibit an increase in general advertising signs on bus shelters, benches and other “street furniture” – was passing.

Read the full article here: S.F. billboard measure split – others passing.

In that distance one can find an internationally known casino, gleaming new buildings, shuttered old ones, historic sites, pawn shops, high- and low-end bars, two no-frills nude dancing joints and enough neon to read the sports pages at midnight.

And now it’s a National Scenic Byway.

The designation, reserved for roads with historic, cultural or scenic significance, was bestowed Friday, capping off a nine-year effort to join the program. The Strip south of Sahara Avenue was already a designated byway.

In naming the road to the byways program, the Federal Highway Administration noted its importance in Las Vegas’ development and the vintage neon on hotels and wedding chapels that makes the boulevard one of the more unique U.S. streets.

There soon will be more of that neon. Rep. Shelley Berkley’s office has announced a $300,000 grant to pay for restoring two more signs from the Neon Museum.

Three other signs were recently restored and put on display in the median of Las Vegas Boulevard north of Bonanza.

“Neon is to Las Vegas what skyscrapers are to Manhattan,” said Berkley, D-Nev. “These signs along Las Vegas Boulevard enchant visitors and locals alike, and each tells the story of our past in its own way.”

Eventually, restored signs will decorate the median all the way to Sahara.

The byway designation doesn’t impose new requirements on properties along the route, according to a city spokeswoman. It’s expected to make Las Vegas’ grant applications for work in the corridor more competitive.

The city has imposed its own rules, however, saying that new signs must have at least 75 percent exposed neon or animation.

There’s more to the byway designation than neon.

The old Mormon Fort sits at Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington. Originally built in 1855, it was the first permanent non-native settlement in the valley. It’s now a state park.

Farther south is the Fifth Street School, which opened as the Las Vegas Grammar School in 1936 to serve a population that was growing because of Hoover Dam’s construction. It was restored and reopened last year, and is now used for office and meeting space.

And there’s Wee Kirk O’ The Heather wedding chapel at Bridger Avenue that has been open since 1940 and served as a minister’s house for 15 years before that.

Chapel manager Michael Lambermont said Las Vegas Boulevard is different from most scenic byways, but it deserves its place among them.

“It’s a little obscure, but it’s part of the new American arcana,” he said.

There’s new stuff too, such as the striking federal courthouse just across the street from Lambermont’s chapel.

There’s also plenty of evidence of tough times: vacant lots, empty storefronts, homeless people passing the time.

This stretch of road offers Las Vegas in microcosm, including half-realized high-rise condo dreams, the glitz of the city’s temptations and the pawn shops some turn to when ends don’t quite meet.

And, because it’s Vegas, you’ll find young women doing what they can to make the route more scenic.

Talk of the Town, a combination strip club and adult video retailer, has swings and a mechanical bull in the parking lot that female employees use to draw attention.

A few blocks down, Showgirl Video has gotten into the act too, with scantily attired women standing out front to advertise its nude dancing booths.

One of those dancers, who goes by the name Georgia Peach, declared that Las Vegas Boulevard deserves the designation.

“Of course!” she said when asked whether Las Vegas Boulevard is scenic. “It’s lots of fun.

“We have (us). We have all the chapels and the hotels. I love it.”

Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.

via The Scenic Strip – News – ReviewJournal.com.

That`s the conclusion of research commissioned by sign firm Xmo Strata.

Of 100 managers questioned, 46% said that they considered sign work to be “less
dangerous than work in the construction industry”.

In fact, there is no independent breakdown of health and safety issues in the
sign industry – but sign engineers conduct work at height, involving
electricity, over areas where traffic is likely, and in the case of work on fuel
forecourts, with hazchem issues and an even higher risk of speeding traffic.
Sign towers on retail parks and MID signs (carrying the prices) on forecourts,
as well as other projects, frequently involve construction/civil work.

Xmo Strata managing director Steve Martin says the risks are higher than the
industry seems to perceive – and the legal liability rests not just with the
retailer, but potentially with individual managers. “In most data we are lumped
in with the construction industry, but the reality is that the risks are
sometimes greater than those on a construction site.

“One of the reasons for that is the sign industry`s reluctance to professionally
manage risk; there are good firms, but too few of them – generally, the industry
regards health and safety as a nuisance and something to pay lip-service to, and
that`s it. The industry has an appalling record in terms of adherence to health
and safety, and this is very easy to check out anecdotally yourself, in a few
moments, if you know what you are looking for.

“We conducted a survey of sign company websites recently and found a significant
number of them carried claims about the company`s health and safety credentials,
and yet showed photographs of their crews at work in which there were clear, and
multiple breaches of (for example) the Working at Height Regulations.

“Some managers falsely believe that if they ask the question, and the sign
company gives the right answer, they are in the clear. They`re not. The law
requires the employer (i.e. the customer) to provide a safe working environment,
and if a sign fitter falls whilst working at height, because he has failed to
adhere to health and safety regulations, it is entirely possible that he could
sue the customer, and not his own employer. In fact he`s likely to sue the
biggest target with the deepest pockets, and in many cases, that won`t be a sign
company.”

Xmo Strata`s own crews are amongst the most highly qualified sign engineers in
the UK and the company has won a raft of awards from retail customers and major
facilities management firms for its track record in health and safety.

More information on the research is available at www.xmostrata.com.

Mr Martin is the author of a whistle blowing book on the sign industry (Safety,
Quality, Tricks and Lies: dirty tricks in the British sign industry and 100
questions your sign company doesn`t want you to ask! available from Amazon, book
websites and all good book shops).

Photos/Multimedia Gallery
Available:http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6071504&lang=en

Press Enquiries
Alexa Gibb, 020 8647 4467
ag@garnett-keeler.com
or
Xmo Strata
Steve Martin, 0845 2300 460
www.xmostrata.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009

via The Horry Independent

I wasn’t so struck by the uniqueness of this story, as much as I was by the detail in the news story. It appears that the reporters in Conway, S.C. are very thorough.

This is a great example of the red tape you may face when getting a new sign approved.