Lamp posts, benches, and other street furniture are covered in posters for jobs, services, and even cultural events. People who put up these ads often don’t think about how they hurt street furniture, which subsequently needs to be fixed or replaced, costing the city money and, in turn, citizens. Because of this, the Cartagena Local Police are getting ready to punish anyone who has chosen to use the city as their own billboard.
The Councillor for Citizen Security, José Ramón Llorca, said this at the latest Municipal Plenary Session after MC councillor Enrique Pérez Abellán asked a question.
Pérez Abellán said that in February 2020, a question was already asked in a meeting of the Municipal Corporation about the growing number of advertising posters that were not properly attached to lampposts, traffic lights, and other pieces of urban furniture. This was a warning about how public space was getting worse.
The councilman said, “The situation is exactly the same” five years later, so he asked if they could explain what the City Council had done since 2020 to stop this behaviour.
He also asked why “companies and professionals are still allowed to use public furniture as their main advertising medium” if nothing useful had been done.” Pérez Abellán stressed that this behaviour hurts the public realm while making money for private businesses.
The councillor for citizen security said that this circumstance makes the public environment look worse and that complaints have already been made about these events.
He also said that the City Council is changing the rules “to fit the situations that happen most often and what we see every day.”
Llorca said that, because of the situation, they are going to start a campaign with the Local Police and other city services that could be affected “exactly to make progress, in the sense of trying to stop this from spreading and having the streets with this disrepute.”
Fines set by the Municipal Ordinance
It is important to remember that the municipal ordinance that governs outdoor advertising through billboards says that posters cannot be fixed or written on directly on buildings, walls, or other similar things. In all cases, external supports with the characteristics listed in the regulation must be used.
Installing “billboards” without a municipal licence or not following the rules for getting one is also a serious crime, as is not following municipal orders to fix problems found in the facilities, placing facilities that create certain and significant risks, and committing minor crimes more than once in a 30-day period.
In Cartagena, it is against the law to post signs without permission on public roads. Fines can be as high as 750 euros or more, depending on the severity and location of the offence. The offender must also pay for the sign to be taken down and the area to be restored to its original state.
In addition to the punishment that is appropriate for each case, the Municipal Administration may order the removal or dismantling of “billboards” and return the elements to the state they were in before the infraction. The interested parties must follow the orders to remove or dismantle the “billboards” within a maximum of 8 days. If they do not, the municipal services will carry out the work at the expense of those who are required to do so, who must pay for the costs of dismantling, transporting, and storing the “billboards.”
The municipal rules do allow for signs to be put up on the fences of new buildings in the area that stretches from the historic centre to the area of influence marked by the streets: Paseo Alfonso XIII, Calle Capitanes Ripoll, Plaza de Bastarreche, Cuesta del Batel, Paseo Alfonso XII, Calle Real, Plaza de España.
In addition, it will be allowed to put up fences of any kind of work on the remaining urban land, as long as they follow local rules, which include paying fees. This includes fences around unoccupied commercial buildings, on the ground floor of plots and parcels with unoccupied or uninhabited buildings, on the ground floor of completely unoccupied buildings, and on construction scaffolding structures. It is strictly forbidden to do this in buildings that are being used or lived in.
Author: Derek Appleton
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