Irritating kiosks have been popping up on the sidewalks here in Chicago over the course of the last year or so. They are usually two-sided light up boards that have "City Information" or something along the top and feature on one side a promotion for a city event or map of the city and on the other a huge friggin' advertisement. So they should really be labeled "City Information with Ads." These are run by the city and so are perfectly fine.

But let Donald Trump put one up and all heck breaks loose.

Trump has run into problems with a kiosk he put up on Michigan Avenue that on one side featured a map of the city and on the other an ad for the new building he's erecting just a block or so away. The City Council here is up in arms over the fact that Trump displays advertising on the kiosk despite the fact that the body twice amended rules to allow him more flexibility in doing just that. At first the bill said no ads. Then it said OK, you could promote the property but not in a ham-handed way. The final change said, go ahead and full-out advertise and it's fine if the kiosk looks different from the city-sponsored ones. While there may be some aesthetic concerns with the sign being on such a historic spot, it seems the city has no one to blame but itself. I suspect too that the official concerns over the sign don't spring so much from those aesthetic worries so much as from the fact that if they had put a sign there they could charge a premium advertising fee.