For breweries, your choice of location can be as important as the quality of the beer you are producing. Your location not only provides a viable business outlet for your quality product, but it will also be an important part of your marketing. Many breweries are looking for ways to advertise, but keep the costs down. Accordingly, there is a great deal of interest in guerilla marketing techniques. Like other small businesses, breweries who are strapped for cash are on the look-out for cheap and effective marketing concepts which will not only promote their business, but also advertise its quality. For most breweries, guerilla marketing techniques will include placing signs on public property. Whether on wooden telephone poles, electric power poles, or official signage on municipal or provincial property, signs represent an economical way of promoting your brewery, even if the science behind why signs work is still somewhat uncertain. Whatever the reason, however, is it legal to put signs on public property? In a nutshell, the answer is, it depends.
You see, the legality of putting up signs on public property depends on whether the particular piece of land is public property, or not. Yes, that possesses its own complexities, but as explained in the promoted article on the legality of putting up and leaving behind signs on public property, the issue really comes down to a question of who controls the land you are considering before you place a sign. This article is able to tie-in with the article on the legality of placing signs on public property. In many ways, the most interesting bit about the case law dealing with public signage by breweries is the question of whether or not the land you are considering is private or public.
Because of the uncertainties linked to public versus private land, if you are considering placing a sign on land which is under local authority, you should seek to get express written permission from the said authority. In much the same way that many breweries are beginning to operate in countries alongside Canada, such as Bosnia and Hercegovina, the primary governmental body which would seek to regulate public signage is the local government. In this sense, the primary entity you’ll be dealing with regarding the local laws relating to public signage is the local city council. If you’ll be operating in areas such as Mostar, you’ll need to take the time to make sure you’re familiar with and are complying with the laws applicable to the region in which you operate.
In terms of the impact the country and region-specific laws play, regions across the globe, such as Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, are governed by their own set of commercial and trade regulations. While the problem of private versus public land tends to be somewhat standardized across regions, how these regulations apply to individual localities isn’t always simple. These regional-level regulations and their interaction with the overall laws regarding signage in the country is another area where expressed written permission from local authorities can be helpful.
As you may have come to expect by now, there are some jurisdictions and localities wherein beer and alcohol related signage are actually encouraged, as opposed to generally prohibited. Of course, the legality of placing brewery advertisements on public land isn’t universal across regions and countries. Indeed, some localities do expect or at least encourage Fair Use of their public signage, permitting you to place ads on their public land. Even so, for the most part, there are few jurisdictions, however, where folks aren’t used to seeing signs or other promotional materials regarding liquor or beer-related businesses.
As such, unless the regional laws prohibit signage upon public land, they should generally be permissible, subject of course to the applicable laws of the area. Of course, as with almost any scenario involving public signage, there are some scenarios wherein any signage with the intent of being a form of advertisement may be prohibited. In these situations, you risk facing criminal or civil penalties should any of your advertisements be viewed as infringing upon the rights of another person or infringing upon the rights of the owners or occupiers of the relevant land you were considering putting the signage on.
This is why we’ve always included in most posts involving public signage, the caveat that you should always confirm the local laws prior to making hard and fast decisions. If you’re thinking of putting up a few simple signs upon or near or in front of your brewery, obtaining and storing expressed written permission from the relevant local authorities is a good idea. In general, if you aim to follow the local laws, there’s almost always a good chance that you should be able to get away with putting up signage in the area without too much concern. On the other hand, if you’re not sure, it’s better to err on the side of caution.
For more information on signage regulations, you can visit USA.gov.