Valley’s sign rules rankle owners

After years of Spokane County turning a blind eye to hundreds of illegal signs along Spokane Valley roads, the city recently started enforcing rules that prohibit reader boards and other temporary displays in front of commercial areas.

So far, it hasn’t gone over well.

Last week, with St. Patrick’s Day just around the corner, the city gave Ed Conley five days to remove a decorative St. Patrick’s Day flag from his restaurant because he didn’t have a permit.

Two flagpoles jutting from the side of the restaurant displayed the American and Canadian flags. The white and green flag hung beside them.

“We have our heritage, which we are proud of, and it’s hanging up there, too,” he said.

Some displays on Sprague can get messy, Conley acknowledged, but he said the city had “run amok” in its efforts to fix them.

Most non-traditional signs and advertising were illegal well before the city incorporated. But enforcing the code gained renewed attention after the City Council passed minor revisions to the sign ordinance in June.

City officers have approached about 170 businesses on Sprague Avenue about illegal signs in the last six weeks, and the owners of seven of them testified against the sign ordinance at Tuesday’s Council meeting. Their concerns included the cost of temporary permits for big inflatable animals and the expense of replacing old signs with legal ones.

“If you drive down the street, you will miss us if we don’t have something up,” said Ryan Evans of New Deal Used Cars.

Grumbling among Sprague business owners has been building outside City Hall as well.

Daryl Anyan owns a barbershop and a noncompliant sign to advertise it, which is now in the back. He said he understands that some of the signs don’t look great, but moveable signs help bring in customers.

“It gives us walk-in business,” Anyan said.

Like many shops off Sprague, Hallett’s Market and Café is tucked in a development with several other businesses.

“They’re just devastating us small businesses who are just trying to survive in secondary locations,” Cindy Hallett said.

She has used a reader board since the business opened 22 years ago.

“It does get junky, so maybe we need a permit process,” she said. Regardless, Hallett said, her business couldn’t have survived so long without the sign.

While Spokane Valley is in an unusual position to enforce many of the sign rules for the first time, the sign code itself is similar to others in the region.

Sandwich boards and other temporary signs require a permit in Spokane, although the city generally enforces violations only when someone files a complaint.

In Coeur d’Alene, a six-person committee discusses sign policy and also keeps an eye out for illegal signs.

A-frame signs and others that aren’t attached to buildings require a permit and have to meet certain criteria, said Deputy City Clerk Kathy Lewis.

As for things like decorative flags, “we haven’t gone there,” Lewis said.

Following the complaints from businesses like Conley’s, Spokane Valley city lawyers began looking into how the council could clarify some of the definitions surrounding which decorations are exempt from the law.

At the meeting, Mayor Diana Wilhite said the sign code would probably be the subject of further tweaking and more dates for public comment.

“Sometimes we need to tweak things, and we need to look at what we have implemented,” she said.