ISLAND VOICES
Don't take risk on bus ads
By Kirk Caldwell
Democrat Kirk Caldwell represents the 24th House District (Manoa).
Hawai'i is unique for having a long history of banning billboards. Let's keep it that way.
The City Council's decision to not allow advertising on the outside of city buses was a vote in support of Honolulu's and Hawai'i's cutting-edge laws banning billboards from our state.
Opening the door on a bus gift-wrapped in commercial pitches would have threatened the constitutionality of Honolulu's billboard ordinance. For those of us who enjoy an uncluttered view of Hawai'i's world-class scenery every working day, it was a risk too big to take.
Hawai'i is one of only three states, including Vermont and Maine, that have banned billboards statewide.
The credit for cleaning up Hawai'i's eye pollution goes to the Outdoor Circle, organized here almost a century ago. One hundred years ago, we had lots of billboards. King Street and Wai'alae Avenue were smorgasbords of the visual pitch long before Madison Avenue had become America's mecca for advertising. Billboards propped up on the backside of Diamond Head advertised Burma Shave, the latest smoking products and every kind of toothpaste imaginable.
By 1926, the Outdoor Circle had succeeded in shutting down this public circus. It did it by boycotting the products being advertised on billboards and by buying out the state's few remaining billboard companies.
Our state Constitution now recognizes the importance of preserving Hawai'i's natural beauty. Hawai'i is the first and only state to expressly validate the use of legal power for aesthetic purposes.
The sole challenge to billboard regulation in Hawai'i came in the landmark decision of State v. Diamond Motors (1967). This case involved an ordinance promulgated by the City & County of Honolulu that banned billboards from the island of O'ahu. In upholding the ordinance, Hawai'i's Supreme Court summarily dismissed a free-speech argument as being without merit, probably because at the time commercial speech was as yet unprotected. Instead, in unequivocal language, the court held that beauty alone is a proper community objective, attainable through the use of its legal power.
Under our current statutory scheme, I believe that Hawai'i's lawmakers are able to furnish evidence that Hawai'i's billboard ordinances are in fact designed to improve the aesthetics of a given area and that the state is committed to improving the aesthetics of all areas in which billboards are banned. The evidence is all around us.
But should the City Council have passed the bill allowing advertising on the outside of city buses, it would have eroded what is now a bright line regarding our efforts to improve and protect the aesthetics of Honolulu.
The City Council voted to send the advertising bill back to the Joint Committee on Transportation and Budget, where it sits for the time being. In the meantime, the city's Transportation Commission has been asked to review this bill and other recommendations and report back at a later date its findings on various alternatives for raising funds to subsidize bus ridership.
When the Transportation Commission reports its findings, hopefully advertising on the outside of buses will not be one of the recommended alternatives. Why take the legal risk of subjecting our ordinance banning billboards to a constitutional challenge? We should not open the door, even a crack, to this possibility.
Hawai'i is unique, both nationally and internationally, for having a long history of banning billboards. Let's stand firm in protecting the beauty of Honolulu and our state.
