Renad Ghanem

Saudi Gazette

 

JEDDAH — Street posters and advertisements of small shops and services are posing a real problem and causing an eyesore across the Kingdom. Owners of commercial and apartment buildings on main roads are continuously complaining about these advertisements. Some posters are even advertising for furniture, sales in nearby giant stores and private tuition, etc.



Ahmad Sufyan, owner of an apartment building in Jeddah’s Al-Sharfiya District, said that his building entrance has turned into a jungle of advertisement posters. Every time he removes these posters and cleans his apartment entrance, more posters are pasted. He has complained many times to the municipality but with no luck.



Some advertisers are advertising illegally on top of buildings located on main roads. They use unsafe methods to install their advertisements. Sometimes they use unsecured wood frames that are not installed properly to resist wind or rain and which put pedestrians at risk.



Mahmoud Abdul Dayem, owner of an apartment building in Al-Rawda District and located on a strategic intersection, said illegal advertisers sometimes use his lamppost to hang small advertisements. “Every time I remove it, someone comes along and installs a new one. It has become a little war between me and them. The funny thing is that I never see who installs it. They must come at night and do it when we are asleep,” he said.



Many people call these posters and adverts an eyesore that reflects negatively on the environment. Several interviewed people claimed that in the past the municipality threatened to disconnect all phone numbers that appear in these illegal posters but no action was taken, and they continue to post these advertisements wherever they want.



Fahd Al-Harbi, owner of an apartment building, said that there should be assigned places for these advertisements. He said that it was annoying to see every time he enters his house to see these adverts sticking to the walls of his home. “Not only are they posting these posters on the entrance of buildings, but they also are going upstairs to each apartment and sticking them on the main door of the apartments,” he said.



Speaking to Al-Watan daily, the Eastern Province Mayor Fahd Al-Jubair said that new plans will be launched soon in all municipality branches to target fly posters. He said that part of the plan is to organize this sector in the future. “There will be field teams that will detect these violations and we will do our best to put an end to it,” he said.