Regulating mobile billboards

Monday, Sept. 28, 2009 | 2:04 a.m.

Trucks hauling billboards showcasing ads for “free slot play,” “hot babes” and a host of other products and services have been trolling the resort areas of the Las Vegas Valley for years.

Many pedestrians and drivers on the Strip can’t stand them because of their size, which results in blocked views, and their intentionally slow pace, which clogs traffic.

But the prevailing, if begrudging, view shared by most people who must contend with the rolling billboards is that they are legal.

A notable exception has been Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, who says the trucks should be banned. But her view has not gained much traction.

Partly because residents and government officials have thought there is little legal ground on which to challenge the trucks or to demand that they be uniquely regulated, the one or two mobile billboard businesses that first began operating here currently have intense competition.

With so many trucks on the roads, a legitimate concern has arisen that unquestionably, in our view, now justifies local regulation.

Not all of the billboard trucks are operated by businesses that maintain a properly zoned place to park them during off hours. With some regularity drivers are parking the trucks in neighborhoods for hours on end, annoying and even enraging homeowners.

This issue was brought to the Las Vegas City Council by Martin Dean Dupalo, an East Las Vegas resident. “Highly inappropriate,” he said of the trucks’ intrusion into his and other neighborhoods.

City Councilman Gary Reese has sponsored an ordinance that would prohibit mobile billboards from being parked within 500 feet of a single-family home. Violation of the ordinance would be a misdemeanor, punishable by six months in jail or a fine of up to $1,000.

A city memo on the proposal says, “The bill is intended to help protect the quality of residential neighborhoods and is consistent with existing rules governing the parking of certain commercial vehicles in residential areas.”

The ordinance is fair and legally compatible with the city’s obligation to try to keep blight from developing in neighborhoods. The City Council should pass it and Clark County should follow through with a similar ordinance of its own.

We’d also like to see billboard trucks prohibited from intentionally being driven well under the speed limit so that more people will be exposed to them. This is a traffic issue that cries out to be addressed.