Sex card controls law controlling/preventing their use in inter alia call boxes
Topic: Outdoor
New development: Sex card controls law controlling/preventing their use in inter alia call boxes
Background: Following a two year campaign by the Advertising Association for the UK Government to criminalise the placing in callboxes of cards advertising prostitutes’ services, the Government has now finally promised legislation. The AA evidence indicated that up to £450,000 of advertising revenue which could be derived from sale of callbox slots to legitimate advertisers was lost each year as a result of the practice. It also reported that in 1999 BT removed 13 million cards from around 1000 central London phone boxes. Previous attempts to stop the practice through planning, litter and indecency laws have all failed, and the Government recently missed the opportunity of including appropriate legislation in the Crime & Public Protection Bill.
What will change: The legislation will presumably prevent or restrict the practice.
Timetable: Legislation should be in place within 18 months or so.
What happens next: The Government says it will be publishing a consultation paper on new sex card laws in the summer of 2000.
