Goodbye ugly billboard

Earlier this month, Protect Scenic 101 announced the dismantling of a billboard from the west side of Highway 101, north of San Luis Bay Drive.  Removal of the billboard restored an area of landscape along Highway 101, the County’s most traveled roadway.  Where uninterrupted by billboards, locals can enjoy the attractive natural scenery — which surveys have found they highly value. The natural scenery is also an attractor for the local tourism economies on which the County relies.

The landowner involved in the recent billboard retirement is to be commended for acting in the public interest by not renewing the billboard lease, and not allowing the billboard to remain. Although not difficult, it takes around a year of landowner notices to the billboard owner for a billboard with an expired lease to be removed.

Protect Scenic 101 is a local nonprofit (sponsored by Ecologistics), whose goal is to protect scenic views along Highway 101 by retiring billboards within unincorporated SLO County’s Highway 101 view corridor.   For more information on what they do, to volunteer to help, or to make donations, go to http://protectscenic101.weebly.com/