What a spread: Wellesley gorging on sandwich boards

Ah, bucolic Wellesley. Known for its stately manors, lovely college campuses, beautiful open space, and now, sandwich boards. Dozens… and dozens… and dozens of these can’t miss A-frame signs now populate Wellesley’s sidewalks and grassy areas.

Even those smaller ubiquitous lawn signs that celebrate everything from little kids’ graduations to the wonders of power washing are being overshadowed by the McMansions of temporary signage.

For a municipality that puts some businesses through the ringer over everything from the colors to the styles of their permanent signage in the name of aesthetics and standards, Wellesley has surprisingly become something of a sandwich board free-for-all.

Dozens of these double placards greet students, parents, and staff at schools. They entice shoppers to enter local businesses. And the town itself is taking the lead, with multiple overlapping campaigns spread across Wellesley’s sidewalks and green space.

Some signs stand upright, others lie prone, and still others have become waterlogged. There are so many sandwich boards scattered across town that people are even repurposing them, such as for an owl warning on the Brook Path (a “No Parking” sign appears to be underneath).

 

Sandwich board restrictions

 
Back in 2010, the Wellesley Townsman reported under the headline “Sandwich boards get eaten by new restrictions,” that the then-Board of Selectmen voted to disallow sandwich boards on public property, with the green space along Great Plain Avenue, in front of the Warren Building, and in front of Village Church having become especially cluttered.

“This decision was driven by the board’s concern about safety of motorists,” said Hans Larsen, the town’s executive director at the time. “The decision was advised by traffic engineers,” who cited the signs as a possible distraction for drivers.

Under the rules, town employees would be allowed to tip signs that they spotted, if the wind didn’t already upend them.

The year before, the building inspector was quoted by the paper saying that many sandwich board signs were illegal due to lack of permitting, and Board of Selectmen Chair Greg Mills said: “We want to make the town an attractive place to live and do business. I guess that’s kind of the basic objective here, to make, visually, the town attractive.”

(We were only able to find a brief mention of sandwich boards in the town’s zoning bylaw.)

The attitude toward sandwich boards appears to have changed in town (and elsewhere based on the number of them we’ve seen in places like Boston’s Newbury Street).

We heard during a recent environmental protest in front of Town Hall that sandwich boards were effective in spreading the word about climate-related events. The ability to use boards to promote QR codes, which weren’t mainstream in 2010, is another current use. The town in general sees the boards as part of a multi-pronged way to ensure residents know about upcoming happenings.

Next door, Natick is looking to rework its signage rules at Fall Annual Town Meeting to support local businesses, and at least one of that town’s Select Board members has noticed Wellesley’s sandwich boards and wondered aloud whether the town of Natick might want to follow suit in any way for its messaging. Natick’s taking special care to ensure that signage does not interfere with accessibility in its proposed bylaw changes.

From what we’ve seen in Wellesley, the boards do largely give way to those who wish to use sidewalks. Though not so sure about that “Parking for Tenants & Guests Only” one at the corner of Eaton Court and Washington Street. Or the legitimacy of one non-town board seen this month on the island at the Forest Street and Washington Street intersection.

Wellesley Police Chief Scott Whittemore has embraced sandwich boards for messages about e-bike safety, and some in town have praised their use along town paths. To be sure, these signs are not intended to form an obstacle course for cyclists.

Whittemore says sandwich boards are particularly useful for parking enforcement, with “No Parking” signs now lining numerous streets, including those near Wellesley High.

“We have so many special events that we have to post extra no parking signs for due to the neighborhood concerns—and it became very time consuming. The sandwich boards allow the officers to rapidly set them up, and they are highly visible-and then they can take them down and store them. Posting signs on utility poles in the traditional way takes a lot of time, and officers still have to respond to their normal amount of calls for service,” he says. “The sandwich boards are clear to everyone and can cover a huge amount of territory with much faster deployment.”

Whittemore says he’s heard no concerns about the signs being either distractions to drivers or eyesores in general.

OK, OK. If we’re really going to feast on sandwich boards, here are some (with assistance from AI) that we expect to see or wouldn’t mind seeing:

(If you have to ask about Jumbo…)

Just to offset some of the “No” signage…

 

Supplement your sandwich boards by advertising on Swellesley.