Pace to allow booze ads at bus shelters
Alcoholic beverage ads will be allowed in Pace bus shelters, as long as the local community does not object, the agency's board decided.
Pace board members approved a change to bus shelter advertising policies Wednesday to allow the advertisements.
The 35 communities serviced by Pace with bus shelters featuring advertisements will make the final determination about whether to allow the booze ads, Pace spokesman Patrick Wilmot said.
“I like the local control because each community does have their own standards,” said Mark Rooney, Carpentersville village manager.
Pace evenly splits the shelter advertising revenue with the community where the ad appears. Last year, Wilmot said Pace received $187,449 from bus shelter advertising. An equal amount was split among the communities that allow shelter advertising. Wilmot said the average payout to communities for advertising was $6,248.
Currently, Pace has the final say on any ads posted in bus shelters throughout the system. Wilmot said if there are any questions of taste or issues with a proposed advertisement, Pace would not allow the ad to placed. Giving each community the power to decide whether to allow ads for alcoholic beverages is a “completely new” policy, he said. Tobacco advertisements also are not allowed by Pace, Wilmot said.
Rooney said he suspected the Carpentersville village board would not be alone in debating the issue in the future, though he only learned of the policy change Thursday morning. He said the policy is likely to raise some eyebrows in the community and on the board. He said it's widely accepted that alcoholic advertisements generate more revenue than other ads.
“They make a real strong point that that's who pays the most,” he said.
Wilmot didn't have any projections about how much more money communities and Pace could generate by allowing alcoholic beverage ads.
“We want to give the ad agency more flexibility to attract more advertisers,” he said.
There are 267 bus shelters in the Pace system that feature advertising, out of the more than 2,000 total shelters system wide, Wilmot said.