(photo credit: twoeightnine)

The above photo is of the headquarters of the local transit company, SEPTA, at 1234 Market Street, here in Center City. Last week, they installed this massive Times Square-style ad for Dunkin Donuts. One problem- it's illegal.

In fact, I just heard from someone who recently was at a meeting with some SEPTA folks and asked one of them, "How did you get away with it?"

The answer? "Dunkin Donuts is paying us a lot of money for it!"

When informed that putting an ad like that up is, in fact, illegal, the response was, "It is?" So they researched this quite a bit.

Apparently SEPTA is being fined $100/day until they take it down, or even bother applying for zoning permits to keep the thing up. I'm sure that they are being paid much more than $700 a week to have it up there, though.

Also- they've had to put signs in the lobby of the building telling folks that there is, in fact, no Dunkin Donuts located in the lobby of the building, because confused people have been flocking there, like moths to a caffeinated, frosted, fried dough flame. Of course, if there were, they'd have a stronger case for leaving the thing up there. But, likely they don't care anyway. And how much advertising does Dunkin Donuts have to do here in Philadelphia? It's like our very own goddamned Starbucks, with one on every block.