T.I.'s Sexy Clothing Line Billboard Taken Down In NJ! Check it out...Is it degrading in your opinion?

In Newark, New Jersey, a racy billboard showing a kneeling woman pulling down a man’s designer jeans will be removed from one of Newark’s busiest intersections, a company spokeswoman said today.

The ad for AKOO, a clothing company owned by the rapper T.I., has been turning heads at the corner of Market and Washington streets. The billboard shows a kneeling woman looking at the camera as her head rests against his unbuckled jeans.

Tonight, CBS Outdoor, the New York billboard company, issued a statement to the Associated Press saying the ad would be taken down soon in response to complaints from Newark residents. No exact date for the removal was given.

The decision to take down the billboard comes after a column by Barry Carter in The Sunday Star-Ledger and posted on NJ.com raised questions about why the advertisers chose Newark for the suggestive display:

"Only one thought comes to mind when looking at the new billboard towering above downtown Newark.

Okay, two.

Is the young, seductive woman about to have oral sex with the young man 30 feet above a major intersection of the state’s largest city? Or have they just finished?"
Read the full column

Residents complained the billboard, which towers over one of Newark’s busiest streets and is lit by spotlights at night, is too sexually explicit for the center of the city’s business district. Newark officials said it was another example of outsiders coming in and degrading the city without consequences. Others said the image of a black woman in a racy pose was insulting to the city’s largely African-American population.

Before CBS Outdoor’s announcement last night, Newark Mayor Cory Booker was considering ways to force the company to remove the advertisement.

"The mayor had requested the (city’s) Office of Corporation Counsel to review the options of having the billboard removed,"

said Esmeralda Cameron, Booker’s spokeswoman.

Last week, CBS Outdoor officials said they did not think there was a problem with the advertisement, which was within the company’s rules for decency. But the company reversed its decision after other media outlets picked up the story and complaints about the billboard increased.

AKOO, the clothing company, did not respond to requests for comments. T.I., the Atlanta-based rapper and actor behind the clothing line, was recently released from prison after pleading guilty to federal weapons charges. His clothing line is distributed by Rp55 in Virginia Beach, Va.

Newark residents walking by the billboard had mixed feelings about its removal.

"It’s somewhat suggestive but that’s not bad compared to what they show in New York City where they are basically nude,"

said Jose Anapoleon, 24.

Freddie Minter, 14, said the billboard was inappropriate, especially considering the number of schools within blocks of the billboard.

"Parents and little kids walk around here and they really don’t need to see that,"

he said.

Devielle Allen, 20, said the mayor, the media and the billboard company were making a controversy out of nothing.

"Tell them they got to get their heads out of the gutter, All it does is make you look at the jeans."

lol and check out what one of my Twitter followers replied with

@iGOTGASMONEY

@DJLADYT A CHICK BOUT 2 GIVE BECKY !!!!!!! LOL THEY AINT HAVING THAT

Is this Billboard degrading in your opinion?