The sticker on the city trash can on the sidewalk at Prince and Queen streets carries a simple message: "Embrace the Beauty."
Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray, however, sees no beauty in the sticker — or all the others stuck on city trash receptacles, light poles, signs, directory maps and mail boxes downtown.
"It's graffiti. It's not done with a pen or a spray can, but it's still graffiti," Gray said.
On Monday, the mayor proposed to City Council members a new city ordinance that would call on people or organizations connected with the stickers, posters, advertisements or signs to remove them or be fined.
Council members, attending a Public Works committee meeting, voted to send the bill to the full council at its regular meeting next Tuesday. The measure could be approved after a second meeting on May 25.
The proposed ordinance would allow city officials to contact parties connected with the stickers — such as the club in which a band is performing or an event promoter or band leader — and inform them in writing that a sticker or poster has been illegally placed on public property.
The responsible party would have 24 hours to remove it or face a fine. That fine would range from $50 to $600. Added to that would be the costs of having city Public Works crews remove the sticker and repair any damage associated with its application.
"It puts people on notice," Gray said of the ordinance. He said as far as he knows it would be the first of its kind in Pennsylvania.
"The solicitor said it would be difficult to enforce. I told him 'I don't care,' " Gray said.
The sticker, poster or sign would need to contain contact information for the law to be enforced. The "Embrace the Beauty" sticker, for example, had no other information. Nearby, on the base of a light pole, is a sticker with Gray's own smiling face above the familiar bow tie. The image contains no other information.
Easier to track would be the poster in Penn Square that Gray cited. That poster, for the 19th annual May Day Fairie Festival, held last weekend in southern York County, contains a website address. The organizers of that event could be contacted by e-mail or a street address could be found to mail them a letter.
That poster was wrapped several times with clear packing tape, which Gray said would leave a tacky residue if removed. The pole would become dirty, or the tape might strip the paint, he said.
"When I see the new streetscape and I know how much it costs, I get upset about this," said Gray, referring to the $2.9 million project that replaced sidewalks and curbs and added brick banding, planters, benches and trees to downtown streets.
The proposed ordinance would include stickers or signs on any city-owned property, such as putting political signs on the island of President Avenue or notices about a lost cat on a light pole, he acknowledged.
But it's already against the law to put those signs there, he said. The proposed measure simply adds the provision so city officials can call on the responsible party to remove them, he said.
The proposal includes exemptions for city holiday decorations and banners.