Thieves keep stealing County Road 420 signs in Scott County, Missouri

The routine disappearance of signs for Scott County Road 420 has exasperated highway administrator Norman Brant.

The number 420 refers to marijuana — generally believed to be the time of day that, in 1971, a group of students at a San Rafael, Calif., high school met to smoke the drug. The number has since become an international slang term. For example, High Times magazine has established a 420 campaign to legalize marijuana use.

On Wednesday, Brant watched the latest effort to replace Scott County signs in place at three intersections. Over three hours, five workers installed 8-inch steel pipes, each pounded into the ground by a backhoe shovel. The brackets that hold the road signs are welded onto each pipe; the bolts securing the signs are welded as well.

Brant considered putting up surveillance cameras and motion-sensitive lighting. Once, he had work crews slather cow manure on the poles to discourage thieves.

“That kind of backfired on us because the manure dried up,” he said.

Cape Girardeau County highway administrator Scott Bechtold said he “naively thought thieves were after the aluminum signs for recycling” and so ordered replacement signs made of wood. Those disappeared, too.

Changing a road name to something less attractive to drug users and pranksters would be complicated, Brant said.

“All deeds and maps would have to be changed, along with Global Positioning System information,” he said. “All the property owners would have to be contacted.”

“If we’d had to go out and replace it all with new, it would be expensive,” Brant said. “But I want to stress the safety. Some of the people living on these roads are property owners and elderly.”

via seMissourian.com: Story: Thieves keep stealing County Road 420 signs in Scott County.

OK, stoners, no matter how funny, it is wrong to steal road signs.  Ambulances need those signs to find people in need.  Now, that said, buildings consistently don’t have a 13th floor and airplanes don’t have a 13th row because of superstition, yet everyone finds their correct floor and correct airplane seat quite well.  Is it too much to ask our cities and states to rename “Road 420″ or “High Street” or “Stoner Lane”  if it is costing them more to protect the signs than it would to rename the street?  My folks lived on “11th Avenue South Extension” all my life, and then one day, without moving, they lived on “South Olive Street”.  That didn’t seem to cause any massive headaches for anyone.