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Opinion

Trash Those Signs!

By SCOTT T. HARDS


あんな看板は捨ててしまえ!

最近、風俗関係の派手な看板が路上に氾濫している。いわゆる「捨て看板」である。看板を出した店の名もはっきり分かるし、明らかに違法なのに、取り締まりがなされていない…。

I met the woman a few months ago. That day I woke up early as usual and, after getting dressed, went outside to get the morning paper. And there she was, at 6:30 a.m., staring down at me from the electric pole just outside our front gate. She was telling me I could enjoy her services for just ¥6,000 for 60 minutes while having as much as I liked to drink. Her hand beckoned to me, while her low-cut dress barely contained her huge breasts.

Of course this woman wasn't real. In fact, she wasn't even drawn very well. But she, and several dozen copies of her, had been attached to electric poles, fences and trees all over our area sometime during the previous evening on behalf of a so-called "salon." The obnoxious, fluorescent yellow and orange of the signs made them quite an eyesore. I took down several near our house and promptly threw them in the trash.

These throwaway signs, or "sute-kanban" as they are called in Japanese, have become quite common in the last year or two. They are usually for drinking or sex-related establishments, but many other businesses are now using them too.

The good news is that analysts say this is a sign that the Japanese economy is picking up. The bad news is that these signs are illegal, ugly, often offensive, and make neighborhoods look seedy. Worse, most Japanese don't realize they are illegal, or else people are simply apathetic about their neighborhood and don't bother to take the signs down. I, however, have made tearing down these outlaw ads something of a personal crusade.

The next day, I went to my local police box and asked about the signs. "Yes, those are illegal. That's why the people who put them up do it in the middle of the night," the officer there informed me. "So why don't you prosecute the stores that are having them put up?" I asked. "After all, their address and phone number is right on the sign itself!" His explanation shocked me. "Under Japan's petty crime laws, an offense punishable by less than a year in prison must be witnessed by a police officer to be prosecuted. So we'd have to actually see the sign being put up before we could take any action."

I was at a loss for words. Sure, it may be petty crime, but it's mucking up my neighborhood! Can you imagine if a police officer said, "Yes, we' ve got the body, but we can't do anything about this murder since we didn't actually see anyone kill the victim." How much more crime-friendly could a law be?

So what's a citizen to do in a spot like this? Since I doubt the local police are going to start midnight "anti-sign" patrols any time soon, I guess it's just going to be up to me to keep taking them down. And you.


Shukan ST: Nov. 1, 1996

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