[rjgilliam]

Hello,
I have noticed that a few restaurants in my town have their company flags flying on the same halyard below the American Flag. My interpretation of the US Code Title 4 (Chapter 1, section 8(i)) is that it is not proper to do this (using the American Flag for advertisement). I have also seen a few businesses and restaurants have their company flags represented along with the American Flag on separate poles (which I consider to be appropriate). Is it okay for a business, company or corporate flag to be flown beneath the American Flag on the same halyard or did I misinterpret the code?
Thank you,
Rob G.

[Peter Ansoff]

Greetings, RJ -- Welcome!

I assume that you're referring to this sentence from the flag code:

"Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown."

While it's not stated explicitly, I think the usual interpretation is that a corporate flag is not an "advertising sign" in the context of this sentence. A corporate flag represents the corporation in the same sense that a national, state, city, college, yacht club or society flag represents those things. All of them are "advertisements" in a way, but their primary purpose is to symbolize their institutions. Flying it under the US flag is a symbolic statement that the business is a "corporate citizen" of the USA.

A flag or sign that said "BIG CAR SALE TODAY" on it would be something else again, and I think that that's what the code refers to.

Most corporate flags are not very interesting designs. There are a couple of good ones, however. McDonald's is pretty good, especially the newer version that leaves off the unnecessary lettering. I've always liked the old Mobil flag (blue with the red Pegasus in the white disk) also.

Peter Ansoff

[rjgilliam]

Thanks, Peter for the reply. I have read the code over and over and I suppose the way it is written leaves some things up to the imagination. So, I started checking out websites (to include this one) and mainly focused on FAQ's to see how people with more experience would respond. Before I located the USA Flag Site, I had been referring to ushistory.org and in their FAQ section, one of the questions were similar to mine. This is the Q and A:

Question:The American flag is on top. But, can a company flag fly beneath it on the same pole?
Answer:No. Corporate banners are a form of branding, and, as such, a form of advertising. Section 8i of the Flag Code (see below) reads:

"Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown."

So I took it for what it was worth and emailed a restaurant that was flying their company flag below the American Flag on the same pole. Their reply was that they were NOT deviating from the code and were going to continue to do so.
Well, I didn't want to cite ONE website, since they could be mistaken. I just haven't been able to satisfy my curiosity about this matter. I'm not going to persue this issue as I don't feel a positive outcome will happen. I do appreciate you taking time to respond to my query.
Thanks again,
Rob g.