The City Council unanimously supported a municipal code amendment last night that will prohibit portable billboards mounted on vehicles from parking on public roadways.
The new regulation, authored by Ward 5 Alderwoman Darlene Mercer-Bruen, was endorsed 9-0, with no discussion, during Tuesday night's City Council meeting.
According to Mercer-Bruen, who discussed the logic behind the change during a Council ordinance committee meeting on Monday, the municipal code addition was created to close a loophole in Woburn's stringent sign and billboard requirements.
Specifically, the Ward 5 Alderwoman had received a number of complaints from Houghton Street neighbors about a truck, with a large hollow billboard sign mounted onto it, being parked on the roadway for a number of days without moving.
Unlike a regular box truck with lettering or other advertisements pasted onto it, Mercer-Bruen explained, this particular vehicle served no other purpose than to act as a portable billboard.
"We have tons of laws in our ordinances on signs. If you have seen this sign, this thing is essentially a moving billboard," the Alderwoman said on Monday. "It was parked over on Houghton Street and I got a bunch of complaints."
"The police went to go move it and they learned that we have no laws [prohibiting these types of vehicles from parking on city streets]. So someone found a hole in the ordinance and jumped through it," Mercer-Bruen added.
Several City Councilors, familiar with the particular truck their counterpart was speaking of, recalled seeing it parked for days in various spots across Woburn, including the old registry of motor vehicles lot on Montvale Avenue and at the old Mishawum Station parking lot.
In both instances, neither owner of those two properties had any idea that the truck had stationed itself on the parcels.
However, according to the Ward 5 Alderwoman, the focus of the new regulation was not to target the portable signs on private property, as current ordinances already empowered the city to levy fines against those who stationed such equipment without permission.
Instead, under the new regulation, vehicles equipped with such signs will now be banned from parking on city streets, and police will be given the authority to enforce violations.
According to City Council President Charles Doherty, he was concerned that the new regulation would extend to residents who may drive such portable billboards for a living and then park the vehicle at their homes.
However, Ward 3 Alderman Scott Galvin pointed out that homeowners are allowed to have one commercial vehicle at their residence, as long as it meets the city codes maximum weight limits.
"It's going to be one of those things where enforcement is really going to ferret out the abuses," said Galvin on Monday, who subsequently motioned for a favorable recommendation on the proposal.
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