• Bnet, Thursday, July 30, 2009 10:58 PM

Lamar Advertising has brought its fight against municipal restrictions on digital billboards to Havelock, N.C. (pop. 22,442). Officials there tried to change their regulations in order to prevent Times Square-style electronic billboards taking over their town. Mark Odell, Lamar general manager, showed up to tell them the proposed rules were against free speech and thus unconstitutional.

So far Lamar's nationwide anti-reg efforts have been successful. In Albany, N.Y., Lamar recently used the same "unconstitutional" argument; the city is now negotiating with the company. In Los Angeles Lamar is offering to take down 3,500 old signs in return for the right to erect 500 new billboards at other locations - 50 of them digital. In Salem, Ore. Lamar persuaded a judge that four electronic billboards were OK.

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