Berlin Citizen 5/3/07

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Resident fights to remove sexy billboards across from church

By Olivia L. Lawrence Associate Editor

Billboards advertising two adult stores, VIP and Penthouse Boutique, were located right across the road from Bethany Covenant Church on Rt. 372 over the past several months.
According to one parent you could read the signs from the church’s daycare window. School buses carrying students from Hubbard Elementary School drove past the signs twice a day.
But thanks to the efforts of a local man the Penthouse sign is gone and the one for VIP may be on the way out.
Billboard companies “have an ethics code and they’re not supposed to put something like this up near a church or school,” said Stan Kavarsky.
Kavarsky pursued the issue with the billboard Company, First Media Group, and over the course of a couple of months and numerous phone calls, he finally got some satisfaction.
Now the Penthouse sign is gone and “I’m still working on VIP,” Kavarsky said.
At this time, heading east on Rt. 372 a two-panel billboard displays an advertisement for the Rt. 72 Diner and the second sign is vacant. Heading west is the other two-panel billboard. This one has the now well-known VIP ad with a sexy woman directing viewers to the VIP store in Hartford and promoting a new store in Manchester. The other panel on the westerly route is vacant.
As he began his quest to get the billboards removed, Kavarsky gained steam in his attempts with some help from Laura Michaud. Michaud has become a well-known advocate in the neighborhood fight against VIP. The adult store wants to open a retail outlet in the former Huffman Koos furniture store located next to her.
People from other towns said ‘can’t you do anything about those billboards?” Michaud said.
In fact, she was not optimistic that anything could be done, but “we found this particularly offensive across from the church.”
Michaud said, “People bring their kids to church… and you look right out the windows of the daycare and can see the sign.”
It is also clearly visible from the entrance to the church grounds and its parking lot and front entrance.
Michaud said despite her neighborhood fight against VIP, “We’re not after every single billboard — but it’s reasonable to follow industry standards.
VIP also has a billboard on the Berlin Turnpike in
Berlin.
Despite feeling it might be a lost cause, Michaud looked into industry standards for outdoor advertising and then “Stan followed up on it more. He did this on his own and I’m so proud of him.”
Michaud and Kavarsky said they would like to see a local business take advantage of the vacant billboard space and move the adult stores out of the picture
While the ethics code of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America is not legally binding in every case (a company code of ethics is required by the Sarbanes-Oxley law for public companies) it does represent the standard to which reputable business operators hold themselves.
“Protect the children” and “Resolve to do the right thing” are among the association’s tenets. OAAA even offers a specific “Advertising Practices for Children.”
In part, OAAA guidelines advise that: “Finding ways around industry guidelines by putting up offensive ads… may yield short-term gains, but the long-term negative consequences can be devastating. We have seen the repercussions of such actions in the last year when the wrong board almost cost us the support of a longtime political supporter. When in doubt, take the high road.”
Under the section “Protect the children,” the OAAA states that: “We are careful to place outdoor advertisements for products illegal for sale to minors on areas that are a rea_sonable distance from the public places where children most frequently congregate.
“We are committed to a program that establishes exclusionary zones that prohibit stationary advertisements of products illegal for sale to minors that are intended to be read from, or within 500 feet of, elementary and secondary schools, public playgrounds, and established places of worship.
“We support establishing reasonable limits on the total number of outdoor displays in a market that may carry messages about products that are illegal for sale to minors.”
“The children in our neighborhood go to and from school seeing it,” Michaud said, of the school bus ride to Hubbard school on Grove Street.
Michaud and Kavarsky said they believe the New Jersey based billboard company did not know that the signs on Rt. 372 were in close proximity to the church.
Kavarsky said the company representative he spoke with said that billboards are frequently the subject of complaints.
Attempts by the Citizen to reach First Media Group were not successful.
Michaud said she gives the billboard company the benefit of the doubt. That since they are based in N.J. the company did not know of the proximity of the church or the school.
“He was willing to work with us,” she said of the First Media Group representative.
Kavarsky said it is difficult to get in touch with the media group but there’d been good indications that the company was sensitive to the Berlin concerns. His understanding from the media group was that there were contractual issues and that it might be necessary to find another location for the offending billboard.
Philip K. Brockett, pastor of Bethany Covenant Church, notes that “110,000 cars drive by our church each week.”
That’s should be a good opportunity to alert people to church activities that might be happening. There’s quite a lot of irony, states Brockett that, the church faces numerous regulations when it comes to putting out signs to advertise church events and yet, “The billboard must be 15 feet x 30 feet and features a gaping mouth of a beautiful woman, who is caught in the throes of passion.
“Hey passion happens to all of us and it’s not a bad thing in the right context. However, it strikes me as strangely ironic that I can’t have a sign large enough to advertise the Boy Scout troop that meets at our church, the Mozart concert that our choir is going to sing, or the drama “Shadowlands” that our drama ministry is producing.”