ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 26, 1997 TAG: 9704280074
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY THE ROANOKE TIMES
Joe Camel blows his saxophone on a 14-by-48-foot billboard at Chaparral Drive and Virginia 419 in Southwest Roanoke County. He plays the guitar alongside Roy L. Webber Highway near downtown Roanoke.
Even if a North Carolina Supreme Court decision Friday had gone to the other side, it wouldn't have changed things for the cigarette icon.
The court ruled that the Food and Drug Administration cannot regulate cigarette advertising. It cannot require that tobacco billboards be at least 1,000 feet from a playground or school as the FDA wanted.
Should an appellate court rule differently, Joe still wouldn't need to move in this community.
Based on a visual inspection, the valley has no boards within 1,000 feet of schools or playgrounds, said Keith Austin of Lamarr Advertising.
Lamarr Advertising owns all the tobacco billboards in the area, which account for only 6.5 percent of its 950 billboard ``faces,'' Austin said.
Tobacco companies buy billboard locations for the same reasons that any other advertisers buy them: high volume traffic, Austin said.
Joe Camel at Chaparral is almost an exact mile from Cave Spring High School, but in a spot where it has 27,500 potential viewers going by every 18 hours. This includes the steady stream of yellow buses passing by the sign twice a day, five days a week, most of the year, headed down Chaparral to the school.
The Camel billboard near downtown Roanoke is on a route where the 18-hour viewer volume is estimated at 48,300. It's also in line for buses going to Patrick Henry High School.
But do the young people riding buses look out at the signs?
Two high school students sipping Slurpees at the 7-Eleven in sight of the one on Chaparral said they'd never noticed it until it was pointed out to them.
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