New York ? A contested anti-war billboard planned for Times Square was nixed by the hotel where it was to be placed because of its political content, according to a hotel spokeswoman.

“Our contract stipulates that we have the right to refuse ads with political content,” said Kathleen Duffy, spokeswoman for the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel. “We’re a hotel; we don’t post ads with political content.”

The nonprofit anti-war group Project Billboard signed a $368,000 lease with Clear Channel Spectacolor for the space, planning to display a 69 foot by 44 foot vertical billboard showing a bomb and a fuse in stars and stripes with the words “Democracy is best taught by example, not by war.”

After being told by Clear Channel that the ad was “distasteful” and would not be approved, the group filed suit in federal court.

The billboard was to be displayed on the hotel at 45th and Broadway for three months starting Aug. 2, and ending on Election Day.

During a court hearing Tuesday, Clear Channel’s lawyer, Robert H. Pees, told U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin that even if his client approved the image, they needed the consent of the building’s owners, as stipulated in a rider to the contract.

Deborah Rappaport, a board member of Project Billboard, and the group’s lawyer, Doug Curtis, said they had not seen the rider before but admitted that it had been signed by their media buyer.

The defense said Clear Channel still has concerns about the bomb imagery as “it raises issues more about emotional than political nature.”

“Those of us who have been in New York for a while understand the sensitivities New Yorkers have for bombs,” the defense lawyer said to the judge.