Scenic Florida | Preserving Florida

Billboards & Tourism
 
[The following remarks were made by Senator Patrick Leahy in opposition to the senate bill labeled the Private Property Rights Implementation Act.  The Senate ultimately rejected the bill, S. 2271, in the summer of 1998.]

"Just a few years ago Vermont became the first state to ban billboards along its highways.  Everybody said, 'Your tourism will disappear; your businesses will disappear.  You will become an economic wasteland.'  You know what happened?  Tourism sky-rocketed up because people kind of like seeing the views and not seeing the billboards."