> Go to church or the devil will get you!

This is, of course, completely ignored.

There are also signs stuck on wire next to freeway exits or other prime traffic areas. Typically they're on public land because a property owner would want permission or would just remove it.

There are people who angry enough about the sign proliferation that they cut the sign in half so you can't read the phone number or address or whatever.

You should be able to go online and pay a small fee (like $1 or even $.25) per sign that you put up for your garage sale or business. The money could be divided among the city, the pole owner, and people who are paid by the city to remove signs that don't have a QR code or has one that expired.

The fee could be adjusted so that garage sale signs cost much less than business signs. Business signs could only be allowed for businesses who started less than X days ago. Etc.

1. I saw one last week advertising a halloween party, so it's been in the ground for over 6 months. It is on a sidewalk near the university and is passed by about 1000 people per day, and in 6+ months not ONE SINGLE PERSON said "Oh, I should talk this down".

2. I once saw a city employee get off their riding lawn mower to move one of these signs out of their way, cut the grass, then get off the mower again to put the sign back!

And echoing the GPs comment, what really gets me about these is that we all have our lives diminished so that one person or company can earn a little extra...maybe. Or in other words, 1000's of people are subjected to this and perhaps 1 person might bite?

I'll close with my favorite interpretation of advertising: Advertisers essentially steal your sense of self-satisfaction so they can sell it back to you.

Weren't you one of those people? Why didn't you do it?

Earlier you indicated nobody noticed (yourself excluded). Now 1,000s of people are being subjected to it?

Why wouldn't they? It's not their job to remove the sign and dispose of it. By leaving it in place, taking up space, eventually enough of these signs will pile up and cause such a problem that the powers-that-be will be forced to deal with the situation.

Just to be clear, the advertisements that I'm referencing are ones like this (https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-signs-at-roadside-advertis...), where the goods being sold are sold on the property the sign is on, ie, they're basically shop signs. They are usually pretty small too, with larger ones needing the approval of the local authority. There does seem to be pretty good enforcement on this too. I'm definitely against advertisement billboards: those big slabs that are just there to distract you with any arbitrary advertisement that paid to be wallpapered onto it.