Placing of Posters on Public Property

You asked about state laws on placing of posters on public property. This memo supplements OLR Memo No. 93-R-1316, which discusses a Canadian Supreme Court case about it.

SUMMARY

Connecticut has no overall state statute prohibiting placing posters on public property. It does have several sections of statute that prohibit it for certain types of public property, i.e. a telegraph, telephone, electric light or power pole, or a tree, shrub, rock or other natural object in any public way or grounds. Other statutes prohibit outdoor advertising such as billboards without a permit and prohibit them within a certain distance from any public park, state forest, playground, cemetery, or from any highway outside the thickly settled or business part of a city or town, with certain exceptions. The statutes also regulate outdoor advertising in general, even on private property. Otherwise, Connecticut statutes give municipalities the authority to regulate and prohibit the keeping of signs on and over streets, sidewalks and other public places.

Our computerized search of the statutes of all 50 states on Westlaw and our supplementary, more in-depth manual search of some of the states showed that other state statutes also do not have a blanket prohibition on placing posters on public property. They either make no reference to this activity or have statutes similar to Connecticut's. We found that Florida, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont prohibit or restrict advertising, apparently including posters, on such objects as telegraph and telephone poles, light poles, trees, and other natural objects such as rocks located on certain types of public property, parks, and along highways and roads. These states, as well as California and Illinois, place some restrictions on and require permits for outdoor advertising in general, both on public and private property. They also, to some extent, leave it to municipalities to regulate posters or advertising on public property by ordinance, but Rhode Island, for instance, requires these regulations to be reasonable.

We also checked for relevant U.S. Supreme Court decisions. We found a 1984 case, which we have enclosed, about a city ordinance in Los Angeles, California, that had prohibited posting of signs on a long list of objects on public property. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in favor of the municipality. The Court concluded that the ordinance did not unduly interfere with rights to free speech because it does not favor one viewpoint over another and it does not curtail free speech more than is necessary to accomplish its purpose of eliminating unaesthetic visual clutter on public property (Members of the City Council of the City of Los Angeles et al. v. Taxpayers for Vincent et al. (466 U.S. 787)). There was some dissenting opinion among the justices.

Connecticut has no overall state statute prohibiting placing posters on all public property. But there are specific sections of statute that prohibit it for specified objects on certain types of public property.

Connecticut statute sets a $50 maximum penalty for each offense for anyone who "affixes to a telegraph, telephone, electric light or power pole, or to a tree, shrub, rock or other natural object in any public way or grounds, a playbill, picture, notice, advertisement or other similar thing, or cuts, paints, or marks such tree, shrub or other natural object, except for the purpose of protecting it or the public and under a written permit from the town or borough tree warden, city forester, or commissioner of transportation..." (CGS § 23-65(a)).

CGS § 23-65(b) further sets a maximum penalty of $50 or imprisonment of up to six months or both for each offense for anyone who "affixes to or maintains upon any tree, rock, or other natural object within the limits of a public way or grounds any paper or advertisement other than notices posted in accordance with the statutes."

Outdoor advertisements such as billboards cannot be set up even on private property without a permit from the commissioner of transportation (CGS § 21-50). But advertisements and signs also cannot be displayed within 100 feet of any public park, state forest, playground, or cemetery, or within 15 feet from the outside line of any highway outside the thickly settled or business part of a city or town, except on the walls of a building where the goods are sold or the business in question is conducted (CGS § 21-58). Violations are subject to a fine of up to $100 for each sign (CGS § 21-63).

The statutes also give municipalities authority to regulate and prohibit the placing, erecting, or keeping of signs, awnings, or other things on or over the sidewalk, streets, and other public places of the municipality (CGS § 148(c)(7)).

We did a computerized search of Westlaw for all 50 states and manually searched the statutes of about 20 states, including the New England states. We found the following references to signs, posters, and other outdoor advertising on or near certain types of public property.

Florida law prohibits outdoor advertising signs from being placed within 100 feet of any church, school, cemetery, public park, public reservation, public playground, or state or national forest under certain conditions. It also prohibits signs that are nailed, fastened, or affixed to any tree or erected or maintained in an unsafe, insecure, or unsightly condition adjacent to any state or interstate highway system (Fla. Stat. § 479.11).

Hawaii makes it "unlawful for anyone, except a public officer in performance of a public duty, or a private person in giving legal notice, to paste, post, paint, print, nail, tack, or otherwise fasten any card, banner, handbill, sign, poster, outdoor advertising device, or notice of any kind...on any curbstone, lamp-post, pole, hitching post, watering trough, hydrant, bridge, tree, street sign, traffic sign, or traffic light on any public property in the state, except as may be required by the ordinances of the county..., or by the laws of this state or the United States" (Hawaii Stat. § 445-114). It also gives municipalities authority to regulate billboards and outdoor advertising generally (Hawaii Rev. Stat. § 445-114).

Maine law regulates, but does not necessarily prohibit, the placing of signs on public or private property. It allows certain signs to be set up without a license or permit, but it prohibits these from being placed on any traffic control devices, public utility poles, or fixtures or on any trees. It also prohibits them from being painted or drawn on rocks or other natural features (Maine Rev. Stat. 23 § 1913-A).

New Hampshire makes it unlawful to affix, attach, or display any advertisement on any object of nature, utility pole, telephone booth, or highway sign directly in such a manner that the object is utilized as an integral part of the sign's support as distinguished from being only incidentally a support to the sign, such as the earth or ground upon which a sign is affixed. This prohibition covers all primary and secondary highways and roads of and within the state without exception (N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 236:75).

New Jersey statutes also require a permit for outdoor advertising, but do not allow it to be painted on or attached to rocks, public utility poles, or trees (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 54:40-60).

New York prohibits outdoor advertising within 500 feet of any state park or parkway except with written permission (N.Y. Parks, Recreation, and Historical Preservation Law, § 13.07).

Rhode Island statute specifically gives towns the right to regulate outdoor advertising as long as their regulations are reasonable. It also prohibits painting, printing, placing, putting, or affixing an advertisement on or to any stone, tree, fence, stump, pole, other types of official signs, buildings, or other objects within the limits of a public highway without first obtaining written consent from the town's chief of police. Violators are subject to a fine of between $100 and $300 or 10 days' imprisonment, or both (R.I. Gen. Laws §§ 5-18-2, 11-22-2).

Vermont prohibits painting or posting a sign, advertisement, or notice on a telegraph, telephone, or electric light pole and subjects violators to a fine of $5 for each offense. It also sets a fine of $10 for anyone advertising his wares or occupation by painting or posting notices on fences or other private property, or on rocks or other natural objects without the owner's permission (Vt. Stat. Ann. § 301, 303).

In the state of Washington, the only reference we found to posters in public places was a requirement that towns designate three places in the town as public so that all legal notices could be posted there. The law requires them to provide for posts for these notices in the designated places if there is no natural convenience sufficient for that purpose (Wash. Rev. Code § 45.72.010).

California and Illinois also regulate but do not prohibit outdoor advertising, particularly adjacent to roads and highways. We found no blanket prohibition on posters in public places.

We also looked at the statutes of Texas, Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio but found nothing that appeared to relate to this subject.