The ICE fanboy billboard in Fisherman's Wharf had a pretty short run, because the district’s Supervisor Danny Sauter said on social media Wednesday that the Super Bowl-themed billboard near Per 39 has been removed.
A local curiosity popped up in SF in the lead-up to this weekend’s Super Bowl activities, as a pro-ICE electronic billboard went up in Fisherman’s Wharf and created something of a local media stir. At the corner of Jefferson and Mason streets, right above a tourist shop called $10 Hoodies, the ICE-loving video billboard flashed three rotating messages reading “Defensive Player of the Year: ICE,” “They Can’t Win Without Defense. Neither Can America," and “Cheering Because the Home Team Finally Invested in Defense."
But as of Wednesday, that billboard was no longer flashing those messages. KRON4 reports that the pro-ICE billboard has been taken out of commission, or at least, that’s what District 3 Supervisor Danny Sauter said in a Wednesday Instagram post.
“I’m glad to share that the billboard ads supporting ICE that popped up in Fisherman’s Wharf earlier this week have been removed,” Sauter said on Instagram Wednesday. “Thanks to the Fisherman’s Wharf CBD and the business owner for their partnership in getting the ads taken down so quickly. No one in San Francisco - visitor or local - wanted to see those pathetic billboards.”
(Fisherman’s Wharf CBD refers to the Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefit District, to which many nearby businesses belong.)
The ads were not placed up there by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but instead by some nebulous and anonymous group calling themselves American Sovereignty. That group has a threadbare website that’s just an email sign-up form, and while Fox News claimed the group was launching a “multimillion-dollar advertising campaign,” it seems like that paltry Fisherman’s Wharf billboard is their only ad buy to date.
Either way, the SF billboard is now gone, so carry on with your other enjoyable pre-Super Bowl frivolous pursuits.
Related: Offensive Billboards Appear In SF Promoting ICE as 'Defensive Player of the Year' [SFist]
Image: @AmSovereignty via Twitter
