St. Petersburg Sign Spinners: Might have been "Spun" out of a job!

By Amanda C Starling on October 22, 2012

“Photo Courtesy of Bay News Nine Website”

Anyone driving through our city on any given day has seen them. They stand on various sidewalks and street intersection corners waving, spinning signs, and dancing to their own beats, but recently their jobs were possibly on the line. Many businesses from tax services to sandwich shops, hire workers to stand outside of their businesses to hold signs and dance around hoping to bring more traffic inside them. The City of St. Petersburg proposed an ordinance that would prohibit roadside advertisers from dancing, waving, or spinning signs. They would have to simply stand still with the signs in their hands, making no eye catching movements according to 10 News on Thursday. The city’s first reading of the ordinance was Thursday evening, after which tweaks were made to the ban according to Bay News Nine.  Some of these tweaks include the sign holders being pushed back from two feet from the curb to five feet as well as taking out some of the language banning movement. Bay News Nine reported that a second public hearing will be held November 1 at City Hall.

“Photo Courtesy of WTPS 10 News Website”

As with most public issues, there are two sides. Supporters of the ordinance view the movements of the sign holders to be very dangerous for drivers while critics think that the city has much bigger problems to worry about. There are so many people out of work right now and this type of ban could  put even more out of work. Although it was not proposed to ban them standing and holding a sign, it is probable that many businesses would eliminate these positions because they would be unable to catch drivers’ attention, which was the intended purpose. Some of these workers who were interviewed stated that it would hurt their jobs and although this is not what they want to do, it is a job. People are hurting right now and if standing on a sidewalk dancing and twirling a sign around puts dinner on their table, why should anyone take issue with that? They are earning an honest living, let them dance!

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