What Are Bandit Signs?

[ArcticSplash]

BanditProject.org - What are bandit signs?

[MTEMPLE]

[ArcticSplash]

+1111

[mixiboi]

I love the ones that make no sense...

[longtimephilly]

Just for you I took out 2 signs that popped up on my corner.

Felt good!

[JasonMcElroy]

Arctic,

Thank you for your efforts in this.

Philadelphia has been embarrassingly polluted with this crap ever since I can remember.

I have an idea for your reporting app: Once a sighting is confirmed (if that is a step/status and you don't just take reported signs on faith), register the phone number and email address listed on the sign with various marketing/spam/auto-notify websites on the back end.

Might speed results.

Thanks again,
Jason

[ArcticSplash]

Arctic,

Thank you for your efforts in this.

Philadelphia has been embarrassingly polluted with this crap ever since I can remember.

I have an idea for your reporting app: Once a sighting is confirmed (if that is a step/status and you don't just take reported signs on faith), register the phone number and email address listed on the sign with various marketing/spam/auto-notify websites on the back end.

Might speed results.

Thanks again,
Jason

What's great is that the data is uniform as it comes into the database (I'm screening and validate what people enter with regular expressions).

Once the database is of a certain size, I will definitely be doing that. Until there is enough new data flowing in from mobile phones and the web, then I can write "EvilBot".

EvilBot is a semi-secret, but it's basically the stuff I was doing manually to some of the really egregious bandit sign posters. I wanna automate the whole entire thing. If enough bandit sign reports come in for a particular ad---EvilBot will wake up and start "gettin' bizzy".


I like lemko's idea of calculating how much money the City is losing by not fining the violators every time he goes out and picks up signs. Lemko has accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of signs. I am going to be putting up a "Jerry's Kids" telethon graphic on the front page of the website showing how much money the City is missing out on, calculated based off the data in the database.

[Eames]

Are political posters staples all over out telephone poles, and worse, on trees, considered bandit signs? If not, what about once an election has been concluded and they remain up? Also, I would hate to include my neighbor's yard sale or garage sale sign in the mix. I have no problem with those types of signs as long as they are removed after the sale is over.

[lemko]

Are political posters staples all over out telephone poles, and worse, on trees, considered bandit signs? If not, what about once an election has been concluded and they remain up? Also, I would hate to include my neighbor's yard sale or garage sale sign in the mix. I have no problem with those types of signs as long as they are removed after the sale is over.

I believe political signs are required to be removed within a week after the election.

[ArcticSplash]

I believe political signs are required to be removed within a week after the election.

I've re-read the law several times to try to figure out what constitutes a legal political bandit sign and an illegal one.


LEGAL:
- Free-standing bandit signs on stakes in the public median. City Code 10-1200 specifically omits mentioning this type of mounting in the law.
- Signs resting on private property NOT mounted to banned objects (like trees), but ONLY if the permission of the property owner was obtained first. For signs sitting on vacant property, you can bet that no permission was obtained since usually the owners are dead or unreachable.

That means signs attached to chain-link fencing, buildings are legal bandit signs. However if the property is vacant I would proceed to remove the sign anyway. Yard signs in front or back of homes are also legal.

NOT LEGAL:
- Political signs nailed to ANY kind of tree (public or privately owned), lampposts, street lights, traffic control devices.
- Stickers attached to poles (a lot of bottom-file officeholder candidates put these up... ala City Commissioners, row offices, etc.)


It must be gone off the streets no more than 14 days after an Election Day.