Valley Metro pulls company’s ‘sexually explicit’ ads from trains

Wanted: One Night Stand. Depending on the viewer’s mind-set, those words displayed alongside a picture of a nightstand could be an advertisement for bedroom furniture or for a no-strings-attached encounter in the bedroom.

The double entendre is one of a handful at the center of a dispute between My Sister’s Closet, a Phoenixbased consignment-store chain, and Valley Metro, the public-transit agency that operates the light-rail system.

Transit officials pulled the store’s preapproved advertisement and three others from the outside of a light-rail train this month, hours after they were first displayed.

The ads were deemed “too sexually explicit” to be displayed on the train, according to an e-mail to the store’s ad agent from Outfront Media, the billboard company that sells advertisements for the 20-mile rail system that runs from Mesa to Phoenix.

But the owners of My Sister’s Closet plan to fight the agency’s decision, which they say is based on “Victorian”era sensibilities, and are considering filing a lawsuit.

“I was blown away,” said Ann Siner, co-owner of My Sister’s Closet and two related consignment-store brands. “I think it’s completely foolish, from a taxpayer standpoint. It’s like, ‘Come on.’ ”

If the suggestive ads aren’t accepted, the store plans to withdraw $60,000 in advertising from Valley Metro.

Advertising revenue that the agency receives is a relatively small piece of its overall budget, but it helps offset how much money that cities have to contribute to fund light-rail operations.

Hillary Foose, Valley Metro’s director of marketing, said three of the four ads submitted by the store were “sexual in nature” and violated its advertising standards that prohibit language that is obscene, profane or vulgar.

The ads previously had been approved by Valley Metro, and My Sister’s Closet signed a contract to keep them on light rail through the end of the year.

“It uses sexual innuendo to make a point or make an advertising pitch that we just thought was not appropriate,” Foose said. “We have to stick very strictly to those standards because we’re such a public, visible part of the community. For us, it is sexual content, the double entendres, the innuendo.”

Foose said that although the ads had already been approved for light rail, she decided the sexual innuendo was over the top after seeing all three ads plastered side by side, wrapping the outside of a train. She oversees the agency’s advertising and reviews ads to ensure they meet standards.

The ads in question depict images of furniture or clothes alongside an expression that can be understood in different ways.

For example, one ad includes a black cowboy boot alongside the words “Make A Booty Call.” Another ad features a chest of drawers next to the text “Buy a Bigger Chest.”

Siner said she thought the play on words was a clever attempt to draw new business, in particular using humor to appeal to the Millennial crowd that often uses the light rail in downtown Phoenix and Tempe.

The ads have already been displayed on billboards or transit facilities in the Valley and in San Diego, where the business also has stores.

In particular, the cheeky “One Night Stand” ad began appearing on Phoenix city buses a few years ago. The “Booty Call” ad is expected to soon be displayed on bus shelters in San Diego.

Foose said the agency doesn’t have an appeals process, but hopes to find a creative solution with the business.

The one ad that Valley Metro accepted depicts a red stiletto alongside the words “Sell Your Sole.” Foose said similar double-meaning ads would be acceptable.

But Jason Rose, a public-relations guru representing My Sister’s Closet, said the business plans to take its complaint to the Valley Metro Rail Board of Directors, a governing body made up of local city leaders.

He said the agency hasn’t given his client due process to challenge its “silly” decision.

Rose questioned why Valley Metro would ban a clever ad at the same time it allows beer advertisements that some might find more objectionable.

But Foose said the agency requires that alcohol advertisements comply with the same policies that prohibit sexually profane or vulgar content.

In addition, she said, it prohibits alcohol ads at rail stations within 600 feet of a school or church. Foose said the distance requirement doesn’t apply to ads on the sides of train cars.

Siner said she hopes to avoid litigation, if possible, but My Sister’s Closet is considering filing a lawsuit on the grounds that the owners’ free-speech rights under the First Amendment have been violated.

She and her sister, Jennifer Siner, started the Valley-based women’s clothing-consignment store in 1991 and have since expanded to include My Sister’s Attic, a furniture-consignment store, and Well Suited, which sells used men’s apparel. The ads promote the three brands.

James Weinstein, a professor at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and an expert on free-speech cases, said he doesn’t think the business owners’ right to free speech has been violated, though he says he finds Valley Metro’s decision laughable.

Weinstein said state and federal courts have ruled that a government agency can impose content standards for advertising space sold on its property as long as those standards aren’t a mask for “viewpoint discrimination.”

In other words, Valley Metro can censor ads it finds distasteful, but it cannot prohibit ads because they advocate a specific opinion, he said.

“If they want to deprive us of all those cool puns, I don’t think it violates the First Amendment,” Weinstein said. “It might violate common sense.”