Bend clothing company’s stickers pose sticky issue

Stickers from the Bend-based “New Growth Clothing” company are popping up all over Bend.

“They’re on the backs of stop signs, they’re on the Hawthorne exit — they’re everywhere around town,” Les Schwab Amphitheater Director Marney Smith said Thursday.

New Growth says on its Website that it’s mission is to offer eco-friendly and sustainable clothes. While their clothing may be environmentally friendly, their stickers are certainly not. They apparently use an industrial-strength glue, making them hard to remove.

“On the cog (public roundabout art) on Industrial Way, they’ve left permanent scars, and you can see the exact outline of where all the stickers were — and it’s been years,” Smith said.

Smith said the Old Mill spent between $500 and $1,000 on removal of the stickers.

“If every local company that was making an awesome product, full of guys working hard, would put their stickers everywhere, it would make the town look really bad,” Smith said.

Smith said she has talked with the company and was told the stickers are placed by their fans, and they can’t control their actions.

To be sure, they aren’t the only stickers or logos that show up in public areas around the High Desert – cryptic or obvious in identity.

But we looked into the matter after a viewer posted a photo to KTVZ’s Facebook page, saying she was seeing the unusual image on stickers all over and asking what they were all about. Respondents noted New Growth Clothing’s logo on stickers.

Later, New Growth posted a note on their Facebook page saying: “Due to the overwhelming amount of support from our good friends over at KTVZ, we will be sending out free stickers today.”

Smith said, “I think there’s a lot of different ways that you can support a local company that’s doing good things.”.

According to Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel, applying stickers on public or private property violates the graffiti statute.

But in a response e-mailed Thursday night, New Growth said they are not condoning the sticker placements or encouraging it.

The company said: “We at New Growth Clothing do not condone vandalism in any way, shape or form. The stickers we supply are meant for use on personal property only. We believe that our supporters will respect our wishes by not placing our stickers upon public property.”