KSAC gets tough on promoters
THE Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) says it will be cracking down on promoters who put up posters in residential areas advertising entertainment events, as it is a breach of the National Solid Waste Management Act.
Deputy Mayor Lee Clarke told yesterday’s KSAC’s Building and Town Planning Committee meeting that promoters will be required to give their names and contact numbers when they submit applications for permission to put up billboards or posters, so that they can be contacted if there is a breach.
“What they are doing now is going to residential communities, nail them up on light posts and create a nuisance,” the committee chairman said.
“This is littering [and] under the Litter Act, we are going to take action, and the people who breach the rule, their function will not go on,” Clarke added.
But the Litter Act has been repealed with the passage of the National Solid Waste Management Act 2001. In fact, in 2004, it was reported that “a large number” of policemen who had still been prosecuting under the Litter Act, had their cases thrown out of court on the basis that the Act was no longer existent.
Yesterday, Clarke said he had also noticed a trend whereby some promoters pay to put up a specific number of posters or billboards, and then proceed to sneak in additional messages for which they had not paid. He said that while the KSAC had been lenient with this particular breach, the promoters had now taken it overboard by posting the boards in residential areas.
“It really defaces the look of the whole community… and they don’t take them down after the event, so any promoter who don’t pay, and we count more boards than is paid for..,we are going to take action,” he warned.
Additionally, Clarke suggested that a retainer fee be charged for the posters or billboards.
Last year, the KSAC announced that companies and individuals placing signs and advertising boards in the Corporate Area – particularly messages for entertainment events – are required to make a refundable deposit of $3,000 per sign. However, the deposit could be forfeited if the advertising board or poster is not removed two days after the event.