Last month the City of Raleigh passed a new sign ordinance, leading to some unexpected results. Under the new law small businesses are forbidden from placing any form of signage in their windows (including lit signs, chalkboards, manikins, or any other means of conveying the what products the business sells), but allows large corporations to place billboards on the tops of their buildings.

In downtown Raleigh the new ordinance began an explosion of tower-top billboards. Duke Energy spokesman Maximillian Thompson said,”After Red Hat showed us that a tower-top sign can be tastefully executed, we began discussions with Raleigh City Council members. They unanimously agreed with us about Red Hat’s sign, and agreed that if every business placed a similar sign on their building, there shouldn’t be any problem.”

The results from the new ordinance have been mixed. A local realtor said,”a city councilor said publicly that my sign was tacky? This is an abomination. The new signs downtown are so ugly that it is causing people to not just wreck their cars, the cars are spontaneously bursting into flames. It’s even worse than a snow day around here.”

Only one Raleigh City Council member would speak to gogoraleigh about the issue, only offering,”Hey, it’s not like our mayor was rigging land values to get light rail funds from Washington and taking bribes on multiple occasions. All I got was a free home renovation…. Oh, wait. Aren’t we talking about the Charlotte mayor thing?”