The exhibition of advertisements of any type and size on a private billboard or in a work area, as well as the placement of a private billboard requires prior permission of the Municipality.
The entire matter is regulated by the law concerning the exhibition of advertisements (Chapter 50), the municipal regulations created based on the afore-mentioned law which were published on October 27, 2000, and the amending law concerning street security, no. 50(I), published on June 13, 2003 (as was later amended) which concerns specifically the advertisement constructions.
For a license one must apply to the Municipality with the appropriate application form (two copies). Each application should be accompanied by a description of the dimensions, the type, and the design of the advertisement, a property plan, the title deed of the plot in which the sign will be placed, and consent from the owner.
The City Council, after studying all the details, has the power to approve or decline an application and impose on every issued license the terms that it finds appropriate.
The fees for every license vary according to each case. Indicatively, for the placement of a billboard up to 2 square metres the fee is €68,00 per year for a luminous sign and €51,00 per year for a non luminous one. For a sign bigger than 10 square metres the fees are designated by the City Council, with a maximum of €3.417,00 a year.
The law concerning street safety specifies the minimum distance an advertisement should be from the highway, a street of high speed, a round-about or any other public street (inside or outside a resident area), as well as the minimum distance that the advertisements should be from each other.
Every violation of the municipal regulations is punished with a fine of up to €171 and with an additional fine of up to €40,00 for each day of continuing violation, while for a violation of the law concerning street safety there is a fine of up to €6.834,00 or imprisonment up to 24 months or both.