11 Comments

  1. June 28, 2009 at 8:50 am | permalink

    I was quite interested to see this Stopped.Watched comment because about a year ago, I phoned the AANews to complain about their littering Old West Side sidewalks and lawn extensions with their “Food Fun and Fitness” issues (in PLASTIC wrappers yet!) that nobody seems to want. The newspaper representative I spoke to brushed me off by saying that they had to do this for advertising purposes. I hope that now this anti-ecological practice will come to an end.

  2. By Mary Morgan
    June 28, 2009 at 9:33 am | permalink

    Anna, I have bad news for you – AnnArbor.com, which is replacing the A2News in mid-July, also plans a “total market coverage” product. The person you talked to is right: TMC products are vehicles for ads. Ads are sold to advertisers who want to reach every household, not just the much smaller market of subscribers.

    Of course, as you’ve seen, there’s absolutely no guarantee that if something is delivered to every household, it will actually get read – or even picked up from the sidewalk.

  3. June 28, 2009 at 9:51 am | permalink

    And A2Weekly, the Heritage newspaper also starting in July, promises to be “A free weekly, home-delivered newspaper launching July 9 covering the people, traditions and institutions that make Ann Arbor unique.”

  4. By Mike Pitsch
    June 28, 2009 at 11:03 am | permalink

    I was also hoping this might stop with AA News ending. It typically lays in my driveway for a couple days because it ends up being under where I park. Then I have to bring it inside and put it in the recycle bin. I thought about calling to ask for it to be stopped, but figured they would just tell me to deal with it.

  5. By Mary Morgan
    June 28, 2009 at 11:05 am | permalink

    Re. #3: The Heritage paper will be called A2Journal.

  6. June 28, 2009 at 11:22 am | permalink

    Whoops, sorry. I had “weekly” on the brain. Wonder if that will be on Thursdays too.

  7. By Kris
    June 28, 2009 at 8:16 pm | permalink

    I have to clean up a dozen of these papers every week around my neighborhood as they are left at empty and ‘for sale” houses. I too called the A2 news and received a complete brush off. I’ve been meaning to work with community standards to have tickets issues but I haven’t gotten to it yet (since I hoped it would stop once A2 news is out of business).

  8. By Elyse Rubin
    June 29, 2009 at 9:40 am | permalink

    This has irked me for a long time. What does the A2 Police Department website say about protecting your home on their Vacation Checklist? Make sure all home deliveries are stopped. I don’t even subscribe to the A2 News, but these things appear in my driveway anyway. If I go on vacation they sit there making the house look vulnerable. This is not a community service.

  9. June 29, 2009 at 9:45 am | permalink

    My neighbors had that problem too, so I usually would pick that up and dispose of it. I hope it was legal. You might ask your neighbors to watch out for you.

  10. June 29, 2009 at 5:44 pm | permalink

    It is lovely to be neighborly and, of course, we certainly should be whenever possible, but if this anti-ecological tossing of unwanted plastic-wrapped newspapers onto neighbors’ extensions and driveways (so-called “Total Market Coverage”) continues in such an un-neighborly fashion–we could term it “littering,” which, we understand, is against the law.

  11. By Kurt
    June 30, 2009 at 11:59 am | permalink

    I just received a response from the Ann Arbor Police that such distribution of flyers is considered illegal in Ann Arbor. They have requested a license plate number of the distributing vehicle. I have also tried to contact the Ann Arbor News, but have received no response.