Eloise HorsfieldBy Eloise Horsfield
BUS companies in Valencia have until tomorrow to remove adverts for prostitution from the backs of their vehicles.
The Generalitat, Valencia’s autonomous government, gave the companies three days to get rid of the controversial adverts as soon as they learnt of their existence.
Twelve buses have been displaying publicity for brothels, escort bars and sex lines since as far back as April this year.
One advert said “Your date with pleasure” giving numbers and websites to call, and another showed a woman’s bottom taking up half of the back of the bus along with the caption “Hello baby”.
Transport bosses argued they didn’t know about the erotic ads, because advertising work is outsourced to private companies.
“All we ask is that they keep the yellow signage and the Metrobus symbol, nothing more,” said Mar Martínez, director of the Valencia Transport Agency.
The companies involved have promised all the adverts will be removed by tomorrow evening.
Club owners have slammed the move, saying they pay taxes like anyone else but don’t have the same advertising rights.
OCTOBER, 2011 : “Valencia’s autonomous government, gave the companies three days to get rid of the controversial adverts as soon as they learnt of their existence…buses have been displaying publicity for brothels, escort bars and sex lines since APRIL this year”. Slow readers or out of touch with their constituents??
I wouldn’t like my young kids influenced by these (IF they learned to READ in school) but a) prostitution is not illegal in Spain – and these ads did NOT advertise sex-for-sale, and b)these are FAR less explicit than the ads in SUR in English every Friday… and many other Spanish papers, and c) these ads did NOT violate the Bus firm’s advertisement criteria… so what’s the legal basis for the
ad censoring?