The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I was beginning to worry that I was the only one noticing how our city and island is becoming more unattractive every day – that is until I read some recent letters and columns in the press. One or two of them made mention of something that is particularly irritating to me and that is the proliferation of advertising signs all over the place.

There are all kinds of signs polluting the visual environment: at roundabouts, at traffic intersections, vacant spaces, even the medians of some of our nice new highways. There are big signs, medium-sized signs and small signs advertising everything from classes to conch salad.

A recent addition to the invasion of the signs is these upright cloth signs that are being stuck in the ground all over the place. Even once-elegant Cable Beach has not escaped the assault – which is making our city and our island look like a big used car lot.

We started long ago to abuse our visual environment with ugly commercial signs around places such as the historic Haynes Oval. Then we allowed a big arch to be displayed right in front of the venerable British Colonial Hotel, not to mention that big bucket on West Bay Street which can be seen from way out to sea.

We talk about competing with Cuba. Well we are not ready for that. The Cubans are busy restoring those wonderful old balcony buildings on the Maleçon with the help of the Europeans, and I seriously doubt they would ever allow an arch or a bucket to be put up in front the Hotel Naçional, not to mention those other ugly signs all over the place.

We used to have laws against the proliferation of signs. Maybe we still do, but perhaps Ministers of the Government are too busy with more weighty matters.

IRRITATED

Nassau,

September 7, 2015.