The 100-foot-wide, 12-foot-tall glowing VOTE FOR TRUMP sign would be hard to miss driving through downtown Amsterdam, New York. And that, according to the town’s mayor, is the problem.
The sign, erected atop the headquarters of Sticker Mule, a sticker and t-shirt printing company based in the small upstate city, has become a flashpoint in a national debate over partisan politics, free speech, and the more byzantine matter of local zoning codes.
Sticker Mule unveiled the Donald Trump sign this week in a lighting ceremony that went ahead in spite of the town’s concerns that it was against code and would pose a distraction to passing motorists. But in the middle of a heated and polarizing election season, nothing is that simple.
Instead, a local matter ostensibly about zoning regulations has morphed into something much bigger, with Sticker Mule’s CEO, Anthony Constantino, framing it as a matter of free speech and unity, while Amsterdam’s mayor, Michael Cinquanti, …