Sign owner giving Valley the business

When we left Duane Justus last Sunday, the Spokane Valley businessman was up to his tonsils in red tape and City Hall Dilberts.

They told the 53-year-old he was free to follow through with his dream to put up the original marquee of the beloved East Trent Motor In Theatre.

Just as long as it didn’t advertise any business that wasn’t on his Justus Bag property at 11205 E. Trent.

Sorry, amigo. That’s the code.

This development, however, impressed Justus as not only crazy but counterproductive.

The area’s first drive-in hasn’t been an actual business since it closed in 1986. And putting up the marquee minus the theater name would make the whole sign rescue more unnecessary than another Dino Rossi recount.

In prison parlance, Justus was “glued and tattooed.”

And then like a divine ray of light came The Answer.

Better than a divine light. This was free legal advice.

“Tell your buddy, Mr. Justus, that one way to get around those bureaucratic knuckleheads is to have a business at that location that is called East Trent Motor In,” said Spokane Valley attorney John Clark in a message left on my voice mail.

With the theater name licensed, Clark said Justus can legally put the sign up.

Justus can locate the new venture right out of the Justus Bag headquarters. But it doesn’t have to be connected to a movie business. If that were true The Gap would only sell jeans with no zippers and large holes in the seats.

“Hell, it can be an eBay business,” Clark continued. “It can be a baseball card business. It doesn’t even have to make money. It doesn’t have to be incorporated. It doesn’t have to be anything as long as it’s a business.

“It can be a poodle grooming thing. The name doesn’t have to be associated to the business…”

So Justus headed to Spokane Valley City Hall last week. He filled out some paperwork. He plunked down about 30 bucks. The license, he said, should be here in four to six weeks.

Call me paranoid, but it all sounds too slick and simple to be true. Apparently it is.

“I can’t see a problem,” a Spokane Valley planner told me after checking and double-checking Justus’ plan. “It should be fine.”

Let’s hope so. I wouldn’t put it past some code-crazed obstructionist to toss a sand wedge into the clockworks.

Justus needs to hurry and resurrect this sign.

He’s trying. Justus said he called a sign company and told them to get started. He wants the old marquee spiffed up with paint and polish.

A Valley native, Justus is one of many of us who grew up with great affection for the East Trent. The sign came his way in 1998 when he and brother, Doug, bought two acres of the old drive-in site. The East Trent bordered the Justus Bag property.

The marquee stood where it always had until a few years ago. But when the state widened Trent, the sign had to come down.

Getting it standing again, as Justus discovered, is a thornier proposition.

But it needs to go up. It needs to loom over the Valley landscape as a symbol of those lazy, hazy summer days of yore, back when the drive-in movie was such a big part of American entertainment.

The Spokane area once boasted seven drive-ins. The East Trent opened in 1946. The North Cedar was last to leave in 1994. In most cases, the real estate on which the drive-ins stood grew far more valuable than whatever the seasonal outdoor movie business raked in.

Saving the East Trent marquee is a way of preserving a small piece of our past.

“That sign is a landmark,” said Clark in a later phone call. “If somebody wants to restore a piece of our local history, he should be encouraged.”

Justus plans to put his new business license in a frame and hang it on an office wall. And if all goes well, he intends to throw a big unveiling party.

“Oh, god, yes,” said Justus. “We’ll have a barbecue and everything. We’ll roast the city good on this one.”