"For the first time in Boston, store owners will be fined if they violate the city’s sign law.... $50 for a first-time offender and $100 for each subsequent violation"
That all you guys know? Increasing fees and raising taxes on regular people while tax loot is shoveled out the door?
That will sure helps sales, businesses, and the economy, you short-sighted, do-gooder f***s!
"Getting clear on health dangers; Law limiting signs on storefronts aims at curbing smoking, drinking" by Meghan E. Irons, Globe Staff | August 5, 2009
The fines are a victory....
You know, I've about had it with the Globe insults.
But the law has irked some local grocers who say the youths should blame television and the Internet - not the stores - for using ads to influence children.
Boston to small grocer: (see gesture)!!
“You see all those ads on TV,’’ said Rakesh Soni, owner of Punjab Mini Market on Tremont Street. “That’s what the kids watch. They are not coming to the stores to watch the store windows.’’
Merchants such as Soni often get paid to post tobacco ads, and with business slowing and the recession dragging on, the grocers say every little bit counts.
“This sign, it gives us revenue,’’ said Soni, pointing to ads for Newport and Maverick cigarettes at his store.
“This gives me $600 a year,’’ he said. “I have to pay my rent. . . . We are in a recession, and our landlord won’t give us a break on the rent. It makes sense to me to have a small sign in the window.’’
But youths at Sociedad Latina say the health costs are much too great in neighborhoods plagued by poverty, disease, and obesity to do nothing. They say 75 percent of teens in neighborhoods such as Dorchester, Roxbury, East Boston, and Jamaica Plain frequent convenience stores once a week, and they are routinely exposed to advertising for tobacco, alcohol, and junk food.
The brightly colored ads are often displayed on the windows and front doors of the stores and are placed at the eye level of children, which critics say gives the impression that it’s OK to drink alcohol, eat junk, or smoke....
Yeah, things like WARS BASED on LIES shouldn't concern them.
Eileen Sullivan, director of policy for the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program, said her program provides $7,000 to $10,000 in grants to 22 youth groups across the state who are pushing the antisign effort.
Is that REALLY what the TOBACCO MONEY is to be used for?
Agenda-pushing garbage?
She said that after the landmark settlement against the tobacco industry in the late 1990s, tobacco companies, offering fees and incentives, have moved away from billboard advertising to convenience stores.
At Evelyn’s Market on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, a steady stream of customers poured in on a recent afternoon. They came for sodas, bread, canned sausages, and cigars.
Not exactly a health bit of fare, is it? Dinner?
The owner, Rafael Majia Jr., who was unaware of the fines until a reporter asked him about them, said the new rules unfairly target small-business owners....
That's cause gummint works for BIG BIDNESS!!!!!!!!!!
