Barrington Shopper Hit With Fair Housing Fines

The Shopper's Guide in Great Barrington got slapped with a $15,000 consent judgment on Monday over some 146 purported discriminatory rental ads. On top of that, the 42-year-old free publication will have to provide $30,000 worth of free advertising to the entity that came after it — the Housing Discrimination Project of Holyoke.

The project, part of the nonprofit Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, complained to Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination that the Shopper had been running rental property advertisements, both print and online, "that unlawfully discriminated based on family status, sex, marital status, receipt of public housing assistance, and disability." The ads had reportedly run between January 2007 and mid-September 2009.

The attorney general's office filed the complaint on Jan. 29; the shopper Superior Court Judge John A. Agostini entered the consent agreement on Monday.

The Raifstanger family run publication is almost all classifieds and touts having the "lowest per column inch rate in the area."

Now it will have to not only offer up free advertising, but also train its staff on the federal Fair Housing Act, sponsor a community fair housing traning for the public and adopt screening-mechanisms to ensure that discriminatory advertisements are not published.

Publications as well as landlords can get in trouble for ads that discriminate against people of any, creed, sex or ethnicity. Just saying "no children" can land you in hot water.