Since mid-2001, some 1,200 ads of all shapes and sizes have disappeared from Athens historic centre in a pre-Olympics effort to improve the city's appearance. The body responsible for this effort, the Unification of Athens Archaeological Sites (UAAS), has become a victim of its own success. Its responsibilities are growing beyond the centre.

Meanwhile, other parties are getting involved. The Athens 2004 organisation is planning the removal of existing advertising around all Olympic sites and roads leading to venues throughout Greece. For her part, new Athens mayor Dora Bakogianni vowed to remove "excessive and tasteless signs" in her six-point plan for the city unveiled January 15.

By no means will Athens become an ad-free utopia. The same law outlawing the ads promises that up to 2,000 new official Olympic sponsor ads will be added to the city for the 2004 games. Similarly, the Municipality of Athens sturdy new eye-pleasing advertising kiosks and bus stop ads also remain in place. One thing is clear: while the powers-that-be promise new ads will be applied tastefully to Athens' improved visage, the city is in a transitional phase. The old residue is being scraped off.

Beyond the centre
As of December 31, 2000, all outdoor ads in the delineated historic centre of Athens were made illegal. Only ads at ground level were permitted. Consequent laws identified a few more exceptions: state-of-the-art messages that only show by night, hotel and pharmacy lit signs and discreet bank and civil service lettering. Least pleased by the impossible-to-dispute law were building owners who were earning up to 1,500 euros per month for massive rooftop ads.

At first, the UAAS's target was eliminating 10,000 ads from the centre. However, with the financing and political will of its governing Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Environment, Town Planning and Public Works, the UAAS sphere-of-influence is growing.

Yiota Goni, of the UAAS public affairs office, checks off the ad-free conquests: Omonia and Syntagma squares, main archaeological sites ( Keramikos, the Olympion, the Acropolis, the Roman and Ancient Greek agora), as well as Filellinon, Amalias, Pireos, Aghiou Konstantinou and Athinas streets.

Now UAAS crews are attacking' Stadiou and Academias streets. By late February 2003, the organisation will move onto Panepistimiou and a street outside the official historic centre, Vasilisis Sofias. That avenue is one of several roads a 2001 law added to UAAS 'territory', some of which are also Olympic routes. Also added were Syngrou, Kifissias, Mihalakopoulou and Messogeion avenues. An average of 150 advertising items shall be removed from each.

At least the task seems to be getting easier as word spreads on the agency's powers. "Nothing stays," Goni says. There are also increased fines. 2002 legislation set the price tag for violations at 30,000-50,000 euros/six months. Punishment (yet to be exercised) reaches 100,000 euros or a year in prison. Ad companies that don't comply risk losing licenses. Owners are now opting to remove the signs themselves, rather than risk having a crew, sometimes with cranes, do the honours, followed by a Ministry of the Environment, Planning and Public Works bill. A case in point: almost every owner on Filellinon Street, who had had a first-hand glimpse of the goings-on in Syntagma Square, took their own signs down, swiftly.

There are limits to UAAS's efforts. Unsightly antennas and air condition units are not within their powers. Some revenues for the project (costing 730,000 euros in its first phase) now come from the exclusive right to the profits from massive fabric ads covering buildings under renovation. UAAS's deadline is March 2004, though the task is "never-ending". Goni chuckles at the suggestion that the UAAS's responsibility could spread to other Greek cities hosting Olympic events. "We don't decide," she says. "It's up to the two ministries".

Athens 2004 and advertisers
A harder task might indeed be cleaning other 'Olympic areas' of Attika and Greece of ads in time for 2004 as well as ironing out the details for the promised official Olympic ads. The same law (2833/2000) that sent UAAS to clear the ads from the historic centre of Athens, says no advertising would be allowed at Olympic sites and along roads leading to them between March 1, 2003 and September 30, 2004 apart from the 2,000 Olympic sponsors ads.

Athens 2004 organisers note that the final word isn't out on what size and shape these ads will take or their locations. In the meantime, Athens 2004 says the Hellenic Advertising Agencies Association has agreed to remove many ads themselves. In exchange, there might be more flexibility on the number of ads put up with Greek ad companies standing to benefit from the rent for the official advertising. It's very important to Athens 2004, says the organisations press office, that sponsors have exclusivity. "Kodak, for example, cant see Fuji ads," one press officer notes.

The Olympic organisation, which would only have crews responsible for ad removal during the games, must until then rely on government agencies and municipalities. Athens 2004 and the UAAS pledge that no matter what happens, the Acropolis and other important monuments won't be hidden behind advertising.