There is a small plot of hell reserved for those who post illegal bandit signs, where, I’d imagine, large neon signs are repeatedly inserted into various orphasises of select souls. On earth, however, these offenders are free to pollute our city with impunity. Officials have continually refused to pursue these titans of slime, leaving industrious folks like Chris Sawyer to create BanditProject.org, a site which catalogs repeat offenders and generally gives them a hard time.
The last word from the city on the matter was from Brian Abernathy, Chief of staff to the Managing Director. He told reporters that he is attempting to secure funding for a staff to assist in the clean-up effort. He also stated that city workers from Licenses and Inspections and other departments have all been notified to tear down any illegal signs they come across.
If that sounds like a bullshit, that’s because it probably is; bandit signs are still everywhere, and Chris Sawyer’s site is still doing more to help the problem than local officials.
But it seems that in allowing bandit signs to thrive, we’ve somehow managed to yield this pretty awesome byproduct. Naked Philly recently chatted with one New Bold resident who’s pioneered the new art medium that, for lack of better term, remixes bandit signs and turns them into something a little more entertaining.
His calls himself “Huggie” and he told Naked Philly that he’s been altering the signs for almost a year now, describing his unique “art” as “Guerilla Anti-Marketing.” “I will put them up next to other bandit signs, I don’t know if people are offended or think it’s funny, but a few days later they will be gone but the other signs will still be sitting there,” says Huggie.
Please, don’t let that get you down, Huggie. We’ll give you three of our finest mules to keep this going; Al Slafman must be stopped at all costs.
Read more at Naked Philly | Photos via Naked Philly
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Chris Lipczynski
