FAQs

Billboards are signs displaying products or services you can’t buy from that location. We call this ‘third-party advertising’. A common example is a large digital advertisement at an intersection. 

The council uses the Auckland Unitary Plan, rather than the Bylaw, to regulate large billboards. 

However, the Bylaw does regulate specific types of third-party advertising. These include:

 • temporary signs, including stencils, posters, real estate signs, election signs and event signs 

• sandwich boards (a type of portable sign), as long as they relate to the business they are outside of and are displayed at the ground level entrance

 • other portable signs such as vehicle signs, banners and flags by a public place. 

As an example, the Unitary Plan would regulate an advertisement for a brand of soft drink outside an office building on a large billboard, while the Bylaw would regulate the same ad if it was on a sandwich board outside a dairy that sold that soft drinks.

 Election signs can be displayed throughout most of the year in specific locations. These include billboards and poster boards: sites that allow advertisements for products and services that aren’t available at the sign’s location. The signs must still comply with other legislation such as the Electoral Act 1993 which includes that all election signs need to be removed before polling day.

 The proposed bylaw enables election signs to be displayed in many more locations within the nine-week period before polling day. These include vehicles and trailers, walls and fences on private property, and approved council-controlled sites.

Political parties and candidates can advertise themselves as part of promoting a community event. 

Rules for community event signs allow: 

• people to use a site for a community event sign up to four times in a calendar year 

• signs to be displayed up to 21 days before the event and need to be removed 3 days afterwards.

 In April 2020, the council agreed to: 

• advocate to central government for tighter national restrictions on alcohol marketing, similar to current restrictions on the advertising of tobacco products 

• prioritise proactively enforcing off-licence alcohol signage that does not comply with the bylaw 

• investigate the council’s options for regulating branding and advertising by off-licence alcohol outlets.

 Any views you provide as part of the current consultation on alcohol advertising will inform this investigation.

Council’s current signage bylaw treats alcohol signs the same as any other sign because the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 regulates irresponsible promotion of alcohol. In response to suggestions that the council introduce further rules about alcohol advertising at off-licence alcohol outlets, we decided to investigate methods to reduce community exposure to this type of alcohol advertising. 

These investigations could not be completed in time to consider whether it would be appropriate to include any further rules in the proposed new signs bylaw