Hollywood Mayor Starts Robo-Call Campaign Against Companies

Carli Teproff, Miami Herald

You see them everywhere — those unsightly and illegal signs advertising companies looking to buy homes or rescue someone from foreclosure that clutter public right-of-ways.

Most of them give phone numbers, telling people to call.

And Now Hollywood Mayor Peter Bober is on a mission to give them what they want — calls, lots of ’em.

This week, the city started using a robo-call system to plug in the numbers advertised on signs. The robo-calls will dial the number over and over again, until the company pays a fine for putting the signs up.

The first offense is $75, the second is $150, the third is $250 and then if there are additional offenses the business must appear in front of a magistrate.

“I think this is an opportunity to beat these entrepreneurs at their own game,” Bober said, saying offenders can receive as many as 20 calls a day. “They wanted calls, now they are going to get them.”

Bober began his mission two years ago with a contest meant to remove the signs. He promised the person who removed the most illegal signs and brought them into City Hall would receive $500.

Now, he’s urging residents to participate in the calling campaign.

“When you see snipe-signs littering the city, I want you to call the number and tell the nice person who answers to stop littering public rights-of-way and remove their ridiculous, plastic, snipe signs,” he wrote in the city newsletter New Horizons.

Snipe signs are any type of makeshift sign advertising anything from junk cars to real estate to education courses. Although they pop up everywhere, there is a forest of them in the medians and along the sidewalks of main thoroughfares such as Dixie Highway and State Road 441.

Hollywood Police Maj. Joseph Healey said the signs — which are prohibited by city code — have been a drain on the code enforcement department, with the nearly dozen officers starting everyday with removing the eyesores.