...if Spock hadn't gotten them to the tail end of the 20th Century instead of the beginning of the 21st: In a city where you can prance down the street in assless vinyl chaps, someone's upset that a historically significant piece of commercial art is an "eyesore"?
Lemme get this straight: This guy buys a house with the painting already there on this side of the house, and the city is telling him it's violating billboard laws? The Riker-Picard double facepalm isn't enough for this stupidity -- apparently there's no such thing as grandfather clauses in San Francisco, and the health nuts claiming the sign promotes obesity need to stop imposing their views on everybody else.
Oh, no no! No no no no! It's only wrong to impose your views on everyone else if your views don't alter something long established! If they do, then you're "enlightening" people!
Well, not quite. Technically, he bought a house, ripped out some asbestos, and found the original siding and sign underneath.
This idea that advertising high calorie food is "promoting obesity" is absolutely ridiculous. If the sign said, "Stuff your face day and night!"...well, that would be promoting obesity. The mere fact Coke exists doesn't make people fat....not only that millions of people drink it without becoming fat. You can't blame the product for the bad effects that occur when it is abused.
I drink a Frozen Coke at work most days and I'm as slim as a rail. We don't keep soft drinks at home; we keep fruit juices. The kids weren't raised on Cokes. They like an occasional Frozen Coke too, but usually when we eat out at a restaurant, they order water or sweet tea.
Bernal Heights is one of those neighborhoods where the houses go for 750K and up. If anyone's throwing paint, it'll be some blue-haired NIMBY whose family has lived there for five generations. What the guy should have done was apply for landmark status as soon as he discovered the sign. Then all the snobs in the local heritage society would have invited him to tea, even if his mother wasn't in the DAR.
I would love to have something like that on display. I love vintage signs. It's a part of our Americana, and worth saving.
