VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A little over a week after the 2023 Virginia Beach Sign Wars kicked off, and the friendly competition rages on across Hampton Roads.
Local businesses are poking fun at each other in hopes of making you smile. It comes after the first sign war began at the Cinema Café in Virginia Beach in August 2022: they called out the Haygood Skating Center owned by Z104.5 radio personality Shaggy, and the rest is history.
The “fight” escalated among hundreds of businesses and even spread into Norfolk when the Waterside District and Norfolk Tides got in on the fun.
RELATED: Raising the red flag | Norfolk businesses join Shaggy sign war that started in Virginia Beach
This year's sign war kicked off earlier this month where it all began, with the Cinema Café's sign reading "1234 I DECLARE SIGN WARS 5678 WHO OWNS A RINK BUT STILL CANT SKATE." The Haygood Skating Center resonded with a sign that read, "HEY MOVIE GOERS ROLL BY HAYGOOD OUR CANDY IS CHEAPER."
And the sign war madness only grew from there: Fuddruckers, Hooters, Haygood United Methodist Church, Aragona-Pembroke Little League and McDonald's are just a few who joined in. Pembroke Meadows Elementary School fired shots at Shaggy, who attended there as a kid: "Did Shaggy skate his way thru school?"
Even Greenbrier Florist joined the fun from all the way in Chesapeake.
Business owners who want to join in on the fun are encouraged to post on social media with the hashtags #VBSignWars and #VBSignWars2023.
