Monday, October 15th, 2007 ::: Back-Ups
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North side of St. Clair, west of Weston Road. Look hard

Yes, this is a double-sided sign folks:

Here’s a bonus for you because we’re not doing an illegal billboard today. 154 S Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA:

OK OK, here’s an illegal billboard in East York. At O’Connor and Donlands, south east corner. The sign on the right was pre-existing, the second sign, advertising CTV, is known in industry lingo as a “back-up”. A back-up is when a legal single-sided sign is converted into a double-sided sign:

We know this is a back-up because we have examined the microfilmed plans for the original sign. Also, look at the Google satellite map of this roof:

There is no back-up in that shot. Bad move by CBS. They used to have one legal billboard there. Now they have no legal billboards on that roof because they actually removed the entire existing structure. (Some industry geek is going to call us and say this is not, technically speaking, a back-up because the original structure was removed.) Backed up roof signs are very easy to spot. The City has yearly low-flown aerial maps in the archives going back to the 1950s. We use those photos to track these things. Nick Arakgi of CBS Outdoor honestly thinks he can get away with this shit. We’re watching you, asshole.