In July 2023, William Shaw, owner of Shaw’s Plumbing in Melvindale, was charged with 59 misdemeanors for tacking more than 615 illegal commercial signs to light poles across Detroit. On Friday, he joined the effort to take down other cluttered signs across the city.
Shaw’s labor contributes to the City of Detroit Blight to Beauty program’s nuisance sign removal process, which began back in 2022, to take down the thousands of illegally placed signs around the city. While the number of signs decreased by summer 2023, the city was forced to take legal action when some repeat offenders refused to quit − Shaw’s Plumbing being the worst of the worst.
According to the city, Shaw’s Plumbing was found to be the worst offender among the top 20 identified, requiring the city to dip into funds and manpower to take down signs in every corner of the city between February 2022 and July 2023.
To make matters worse, Shaw’s Plumbing signs were harder to remove than most. Shaw’s signs were placed using a nail gun with threaded nails that have wide plastic collars as opposed to a typical nail gun, often requiring city workers to use box cutters to cut around the heavy-duty nail heads.