February 14th, 2006
Littleton Police Sell Ad Space on Cruiser
By Kathleen Burge
Boston Globe
All five of the police cruisers in Littleton had racked up more than 100,000 miles and were frequent visitors to the repair shop. When town budget officials said there was no money for new cars, Police Chief John M. Kelly had an unusual idea: Sell ads on the cruisers.
Last Wednesday, the town’s newest cruiser, a blue 2006 Ford Crown Victoria, began roaming the streets of Littleton, a town of 8,600 about 26 miles northwest of Boston, with small ads on its trunk and fenders for Donelan’s Market, a local supermarket chain. It is the first police vehicle in the state emblazoned with commercial advertisements. A local Toyota dealership and another business that wishes to remain anonymous are considering sponsorship of two other cars.
For the ads, Donelan’s is paying $12,000 a year for three years, the full cost of leasing the vehicle for the Police Department.
Businesses can also pay for portions of a police cruiser or fire pickup truck: $4,000 a year for a single ad on the trunk or $8,000 a year for ads on both fenders.
"I believe it’s very innocuous. It’s not like a NASCAR," Kelly said, referring to race cars that are festooned with advertising and corporate logos. "It does not take away from the integrity of the vehicle being a police cruiser."
But others are not so sure. Selling commercial space on law enforcement vehicles has been controversial in municipalities across the country over the past several years. It is not clear how many police departments have sold ads on their cruisers.
"Putting ads on police cars literally says our law is for sale, and of course that’s going to increase dis respect for the law itself," said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a group based in Portland, Ore., that monitors commercialism. "It’s not the proper role of a city or its police force to hawk products."
In 2002, after several communities considered selling ads on police cruisers, Commercial Alert and several- dozen law professors and other criminal justice specialists sent letters to the chief executives of 100 of the country’s largest advertisers.
The letters asked them to refrain from advertising on police vehicles to avoid turning law enforcement officers into "objects of ridicule and contempt."
Locally, as communities have struggled to pay for services without significantly increasing taxes, many have turned to new ideas. Several school districts allow their buses to act as traveling billboards, after Beverly’s yellow buses began advertising Big Jim’s Auto Body and Curves gym in 2003.
Before Kelly began selling ads, he checked with the offices of the attorney general and the inspector general, to see whether there were any restrictions. They told him that there were no specific rules and that no other police department had a similar advertising campaign.
Kelly said he was talking with local advertisers, not national companies, and would reject ads that weren’t appropriate for police cruisers, such as those for liquor, tobacco, or birth control.
Some Littleton residents at a November Town Meeting said they were concerned about advertisers getting special preference from the Police Department.
Both Kelly and Wayne Coe, director of finance for the six-store chain of Donelan’s Supermarkets, said Kelly told store officials that would not be the case.
"We’re not expecting any special treatment here," Coe said.
The state association of police chiefs does not take a position on ads on police cruisers, recognizing that towns are struggling with their budgets, said the group’s president, Chief A. Wayne Sampson of Shrewsbury.
But, Sampson said, he would not want the ads in his town.
"It doesn’t seem to be the professional standard that we should be projecting," he said. "We’re not a taxi cab company."
Councilor Stephen J. Murphy, chairman of the Boston City Council’s Public Safety Committee, said the council has never considered advertising on police cruisers, and he was dubious that the idea would win support.
A few years ago, he said, councilors rejected the idea of advertising on school buses.
"We thought that advertising might clutter the bus to the point that it might clutter the purpose of the bus and confuse drivers," he said.
Murphy said he would fear that advertising on police cruisers would also confuse motorists.
"Emergency vehicles are intended for public safety uses, and I don’t think we’d try to turn them into revenue generators," he said.