Gwinnett Forum Aug 12, 2005
You may have heard of the "Gwinnett sign posse". We actually call ourselves "The TruckloadBunch" and we have earned the respect and support of county commissioners, police officers and citizens. We usually work alone and until recently, many of us had never even met in person. Every week we pick up and dispose of hundreds of illegal signs. We collect truckload after truckload of "trash on a stick".
Illegal signage along public roadways is a major blight and a curse upon every property owner. You can judge the vitality of homes in an area by the type of "street spam" nearby. Decaying neighborhoods are plagued with "For Rent", "Lease/Purchase" and "Debt Relief" signs. Mature communities are targeted by "Lawn Service", "Computer Repairs" and "Junk Removal". New developments are plastered with multicolor weekend directional signs. The problem is, they all look horrible and one sign quickly attracts dozens more.
It doesn't have to be this way. ANYONE can remove and destroy illegal signs just like any other roadside trash. It takes just a few seconds to pull over and grab a sign. When a sign stays up, it will attract other signs and pretty soon there is an entire forest of them. Our invisible hands stop this nightmare so you probably don't realize how bad things would look otherwise.
But you don't have to go far to see where our grip ends. Recently several of us went into the northernmost part of the county, where expensive homes and cow pastures still coexist. The Mall of Georgia/Hamilton Mill area is totally infested with directionals and commercial advertising, and we filled up an entire dumpster. There just aren't enough of us to cover such a huge area.
County "code enforcement" efforts are being concentrated in South Gwinnett right now where sign battles have simmered for years. The County Recorder's Court has been historically reluctant to impose substantial fines but we have hopes this is changing. Fines of up to $1000 PER SIGN can be imposed and it would only take a few of these before every developer in the county suddenly starts obeying the law.
We are not anti-development and wish everyone success in their ventures. But there are other ways to advertise that don't take away from our quality of life. We do this because we care and we consider it an investment in our community. Please see our new website: http://www.truckloadbunch.org for more information.
Reprinted by permission of author