It started innocently enough. Trevor Cork, who owns Speedy Auto Glass in Listowel, Ontario in Canada put up a sign with a question for the Dairy Queen restaurant across the street: “Hey DQ, wanna have a sign war?”
Amy Hamilton, owner of the Dairy Queen, accepted the challenge. But what neither knew was that their good-hearted fun would soon have the whole town joining in!
Dairy Queen
Speedy Glass got the ball rolling. Or should we say they “fired up the grill?”
Dairy Queen responded in kind. Hamilton told CBC, “My understanding of a sign war is: they chirp and we chirp back.”
Dairy Queen
Speedy Glass Listowel / Trevor Cork
Dairy Queen
The chirping soon caught the attention of other businesses in the area. The North Perth Fire Department decided to weigh in first.
North Perth Fire Department
That prompted DQ to answer.
A local sports store wanted to chirp too.
As did a local car wash.
A funeral home even weighed in.
All the action made a eye care store focus in.
Some decided to “opt” out…for now.
Others didn’t pull any punches.
Atwood Presbyterian Church
Some noticed the “gloves were coming off.”
And the puns keep getting sillier and sillier (or better and better?).
Speedy Glass Listowel / Trevor Cork
Listowel Vision Care
Neither Speedy Glass or DQ are conceding or declaring a winner in their Sign Wars yet. If anything things are just heating up.
Speedy Glass Listowel / Trevor Cork
Their sign wars have inspired other neighboring towns to join in or do their own. And it’s gone international! It has been pointed out that the Sign Wars actually got its start in Christenberg, Virginia, USA. So now the two towns (Listowel and Christenberg) are exchanging and International Sign War!
Cork (of Speedy Glass) told BBC News he wasn’t expecting it to blow up as it did but that the idea began as a way to lighten people’s moods in the midst of the pandemic and it has 100% to do with smiles and not sales.
With the Sign Wars going viral across the world people in the community having started a Sign Wars Facebook group. You can also keep track of new signs on Speedy Glass Listowel’s Facebook page.
Speedy Glass Listowel / Trevor Cork
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