Cars and buses have been excluded from rules governing when election signs can begin popping up around Tauranga - effectively opening the way to permanently signwritten cars.
The council yesterday ruled in favour of the five candidates who have used their cars and a bus to begin advertising themselves well before the September 14 date when election signs were officially allowed on to city streets. But a warning shot has been fired across the bows of the two candidates who have parked their signwritten cars on the sides of busy roads.
Council chief executive Garry Poole said candidates' cars would be towed away if they broke the bylaw that stopped any vehicles carrying advertising from parking on roadsides for the purpose of advertising.
The council voted 8-1 with two abstentions to exclude vehicles from the election sign definitions of hoardings, posters, signs and other "similar types". The policy did not refer specifically to vehicles.
Councillor Murray Guy, whose car has featured a small election sign, led the debate in moving that vehicles be excluded from the rules governing when election signs could appear. He said cars had inadvertently been captured in the policy which was aimed at managing the proliferation of unsightly roadside signs.