cross-posted at OMI
It looks like the plywood may be coming down from the Mirador mural at last, as Judge Michael Marcus rules against Clear Channel in its suit against Portland's anti-billboard ordinance:
Multnomah Circuit Court Judge Michael Marcus ruled that Clear Channel wasn’t entitled to any compensation, and at the urging of city attorneys, he clarified that Portland could, in fact, differentiate between murals and billboards, as long as it wasn’t based on the content of the signs.
“[N]othing that I am aware of prevents the City from ‘preferring’ art over commercial speech,” Marcus wrote, “any more than it may choose to prefer other forms of commerce to ‘adult’ book stores, quiet forms of recreation to automobile races, backpacking to ATVs, public transportation to individual automobiles, [or] vibrant commercial occupancies to abandoned buildings.”
In other words, IN YOUR FACE, CLEAR CHANNEL!
Indeed. Love the comparison of billboards to sex shops. The city policy still needs to be rewritten, so for now the plywood remains.
