It’s official - a woman’s back is obscene

Driver protests bring down racy billboards

MATT MISTEREK; The News Tribune

For one Edgewood resident, a pair of billboards that recently sprouted along state Highway 161 were an eyesore that crossed the centerline of public decency.

“Harder, faster, louder,” the lettering declared under the bare backs of three attractive women, a black censor bar covering their rear ends.

“It was just distasteful to drive by and see that,” said Steve Cope, who was in the car with his wife and two of their six children the first time he saw the billboard. “It’s like something you’d see on a magazine with a black plastic cover on the front.”

But for the radio station manager behind the signs, they are a sight for sore eyes - an advertising campaign that perfectly expresses the high-octane personality of one of the Puget Sound area’s mainstay hard-rock stations.

“The reality is, there are a lot of guys in their 20s and 30s who love them,” said Dave Richards, manager of KISW-FM. “There are a lot of people who look at them and say, ‘That’s cool. I get it.’”

If there’s one thing Cope and Richards can agree on, it’s that the billboards are effective at making people look - and look again.

“It absolutely catches people’s eyes,” Cope said.

But no longer in Edgewood.

The two billboards at the highway’s intersection with 36th Street East and 18th Street Court East were taken down early this week after Edgewood City Manager Henry Lawrence asked KISW to respect the sensitivities of a few complaining residents.

The city has little regulatory control over billboards on the highway because they predate Edgewood’s incorporation in 1996. Both Richards and Lawrence said the sign removal was simply the result of a cordial conversation.

Richards said he first received a call from Cope, which he regarded as threatening and ignored. But he later took a polite call from the city manager, whose wishes KISW decided to respect.

“We’re not going to start a war over two billboards,” said the manager of the station, which brands itself “The Rock of Seattle” and broadcasts the unapologetically raunchy “Howard Stern Show” weekday mornings.

Highway 161-Meridian Avenue East is at once the spine and the heart of Edgewood. It carries the bulk of the traffic that moves through the city - more than 17,000 vehicles a day. But it also symbolizes the divisions between the pro-growth property owners who want it widened to five lanes and the slow-growth residents who want to preserve their quiet bedroom community.

Billboard advertising along the highway might seem like a relatively small matter, but the city is gradually gaining control of it. In 2002, the City Council passed a sign code that prevents any new billboards from being built and puts the others on schedule to be removed by the end of 2007, Lawrence said.

“There will be a public notice process about three years from now,” he said.

Nationally, the movement to control billboards began about 50 years ago during the highway beautification crusade led by first ladies Mamie Eisenhower and Lady Bird Johnson. Washington was one of 16 states to voluntarily comply when it was still optional, said Pat O’Leary, outdoor advertising coordinator for the state Department of Transportation.

Today, there are varying degrees of sign restrictions depending on whether a road is an interstate, a primary highway or a scenic highway. The state regulates structural features - size, shape, illumination, spacing - but it rarely bans the content of a sign unless it promotes illegal activity, O’Leary said.

It is a patchwork approach with some obvious gaps.

On the Puyallup Tribe’s unregulated reservation land, for instance, billboards are clustered along Interstate 5 - including the flashing video screen north of Fife, which wouldn’t conform with state law.

“You can’t miss them,” O’Leary said. “They are two or three times larger” than what’s allowed elsewhere.

Highway 161 also is unregulated north of the Puyallup River bridge to where it connects with Highway 18, including the entire stretch through Edgewood.

O’Leary said this week’s billboard removal in Edgewood is a good example of the industry policing itself and showing responsiveness to the people who live there.

As one of those residents, Steve Cope is relieved that he won’t have to divert his children’s eyes from what he considers an overstepping of the First Amendment.

“That really crossed the line,” he said.

Meanwhile, the KISW ad campaign rocks on with well over 100 billboards in the Puget Sound area, including in Fife and Tacoma’s Nalley Valley. There are three variations of the signs, each with three local KISW “Rock Girls” exposing heavy-metal tattoos.

Richards, the station manager, downplays the sexual imagery.

“The ‘harder, faster, louder’ is not about the girls,” he said. “It’s about the music.”

This is ridiculous I’m sure the six children of these people have seen just as much skin and sexual imagery on a beer or shampoo commercial. Herbal Essence comes to mind…with a woman moaning as if she’s having an orgasm.

These don’t have nearly as much skin as something you’d see on a magazine with a black plastic cover on the front…I wonder if he plans on protesting Playboy when his kids find his stack of magazines. Here are the - oh so racy billboard pictures…

What the hell do people think they’re protecting their kids from anyway? Why is nudity such a horrible thing? I find it strange that between birth and nine months kids are attached to their mother’s breast and all is natural and beautiful. Once the kids are old enough to ask questions it’s all bad and evil.