ASCENSION PARISH - Whether for garage sales, smoothies, or small businesses, it's hard to drive anywhere in Gonzales without seeing advertising signs staked into the ground.

Ascension Parish Chief Code Enforcement Officer Patrice Johnson says that's a problem.

"It impedes vision or line of sight and traffic, and for occurrences like Ida, where things are just blown around, these signs eventually ended up in the parish right-of-way or in the drainage ditches," Johnson said.

Johnson says the parish is getting more and more gripes about what it calls "litter on a stick." Wednesday, parish workers were busy yanking many out of the ground.

"Citizens have noticed the amount of trash in Ascension, and we're making the effort to improve," Johnson said.
Parish leaders say the mounting complaints led to new rules and Wednesday's clean-up.

"We have doubled the size of our code enforcement department. We just adopted a new ordinance that has teeth, that way we can go after people, go after our litterbugs."

Johnson says she does not want to stop small businesses from advertising. She says they need to do so legally.

"Anything between the telephone pole in the road, close to sidewalks, don't place the sign there."
To report illegal signs, you can call the citizen's service center at 225-450-1200.