Call these lawbreakers, tell them to stop harming DC's trees

There are people who live in DC and businesses that operate here who don't care to follow DC law. Some of these individuals have a special disrespect for the trees in our neighborhoods. It's time we tell them, en masse, that we are sick and tired of this disrepect and lawlessness.

Below are a series of signs that I came across this morning on my ride into work. I'm passing this information along to the Department of Public Works as well, in hopes that they will throw the books at these creeps and fine them to the fullest extent possible under the law. Unfortunately, that might just be a couple hundred dollars.

In the meantime, I strongly encourage anyone reading this to call the numbers on these signs and give them a piece of your mind. Maybe, if we can shame these people enough (or at least clog up their voicemail boxes), we can get them to stop dumping their garbage on our city.

DC is a beautiful place. Let's keep it that way.

Juicy J is performing at Ibiza nightclub in NoMa this Friday. There's an opportunity to tell four different groups of people that they need to respect city law and not nail signs to our street trees.

• Juicy J's twitter handle is @therealjuicyj. Send him a tweet and tell him the promoter he's hired is a hack.
• His sign was produced by a company called Gig Signs. Their phone number is (609) 420-4242. Call them and tell them their signs don't belong nailed to our city's trees
• The club where the show is happening is Ibiza. Call them at (888) 424-9232 and tell them you don't appreciate their shows being promoted in a way that harms trees.
• There's a number on the signs for "Social Architects," which appears to be the promoter. Call them at (202) 905-3131, and give them a piece of your mind about nailing signs to trees.

Here's another one of Juicy J's signs. These were nailed to trees on the 800 block of K Street NE.

DC House Max appears to be one of those shady companies that buys houses from people in economic distress, then does a shoddy job and flips the house, leaving the new owner with a mess that'll start falling apart after 8 months. They also like to screw their signs to trees. I didn't have a Phillips head screwdriver with me this morning to remove this sign, but it's still located on the 1100 block of K Street NE.

Here's a close-up of that screw and washer. Call DC House Max at (202) 288-3200 and tell them that you're sick and tired of their ilk and what they do to our trees.

Finally, this sign was one of two that wasn't nailed to a tree, but was tied to lampposts on Florida Avenue NE at the entrance to Gallaudet University. It's not legal to put advertising signs on posts without registering them with the city and affixing a date to the signs noting when they were put up. The latter wasn't done, and I'd bet a princely sum that the former wasn't done either. I took them down and threw them out. But go ahead and call (202) 800-2728 and leave a message. Fill up their inbox so they can't actually do business.

Sign Blight - Help us shame these lawbreakers

Rule 24-108 in the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations gives guidance on the placement of signs, posters, and placards in the city's public space. Subsection 2 reads, "The placing of any advertisement on any tree in public space is prohibited." That means the signs below are not legal. Period.

In addition, these signs are nailed to the trees. The first sign (apologies for the quality) is nailed to a willow oak near the corner of Neal Street and Montello Avenue NE, and the second and third signs are nailed to a sycamore tree at West Virginia Avenue and Penn Street NE. Putting holes in our mature, beautiful street trees causes them harm; creating wounds such as this give insects and fungi access to the heart of the trees.

These signs are placed in low-income neighborhoods by people who try to use the lure of cash to get people who might be down on their luck to sell their homes for pennies on the dollar. Beside the fact that these signs are illegal, ugly, and harmful, they're also exploitative.

I'm proposing that we call them and register our displeasure and disgust. The number on these signs is 703-910-5173. Call them and tell them to take the signs down because they're damaging trees. Call them and tell them to take the signs down because they're illegal. And call them and tell them to take the signs down because we don't need their kind trying to drive the working poor from their homes in order for a short-term infusion of cash, while they get rich off of this exploitation.

Please take a minute of your day, it's not much, but if enough people do, maybe we can make our voices heard.

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If you want to take it one further, call 202-455-6129. That's not the number on the signs below, but it is the direct line to the company that put the signs up. I've documented many signs here around Trinidad. Some I was able to remove myself because they were only 6 or 7 feet off the ground. Some of these signs are 13 to 15 feet off the ground, though - out of reach without a ladder. Give them the same hell you'd give to the jerks who nailed the signs to the trees.

Fast food signs

This quick study shows two tall signs for fast food establishments. These are the kind of signs that you would usually see on an Interstate Highway, advertising an establishment to long-distance travelers approaching the exit.

First is the sign for a McDonalds at the corner of 9th and T Streets NE. It's in the middle of an area that's zoned industrial and commercial, with no residences for many blocks in every direction (map).

The second sign is for the Checkers just off of H Street in the northeast corner of Capitol Hill (map). This location is surrounded by residences, on the edge of the H Street commercial district.

I looked through the zoning regulations, expecting to find something that might hint that the Checkers sign would not be legal. It just seems so out of place in a residential neighborhood, especially one with the design rules of Capitol Hill. But the location is a few blocks north and east of the edge of the Capitol Hill Historic District, so the stricter rules that would probably preclude such signage don't apply here.