In order to promote public safety, health, welfare, convenience and enjoyment of public travel, to protect the public investment in public highways and to preserve and enhance the scenic beauty of lands bordering public highways, it is the public policy of this state to regulate the erection and maintenance of outdoor advertising and the establishment, operation and maintenance of junkyards in areas adjacent to the interstate and primary systems in accordance with the Highway Beautification Act. The legislature finds that regulation of outdoor advertising and junkyards is for a highway purpose.
History: 1953 Comp., § 55-11-3, enacted by Laws 1966, ch. 65, § 3.
ANNOTATIONSAct meets constitutionality test. — The Highway Beautification Act meets the three-pronged test used to determine whether a time, place and manner restriction is valid: the act's restrictions on plaintiffs' exercise of their freedom of speech is justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, its restrictions on plaintiffs' freedom of speech serve a significant governmental interest and the act leaves open ample alternative channels for communication of the information. Stuckey's Stores, Inc. v. O'Cheskey, 1979-NMSC-060, 93 N.M. 312, 600 P.2d 258, appeal dismissed, 446 U.S. 930, 100 S. Ct. 2145, 64 L. Ed. 2d 783 (1980).