Council rethinking crackdown on business signs
Many of the sandwich signs, reader boards and other temporary displays that businesses in Spokane Valley use to pull traffic off streets such as Sprague Avenue have disappeared since Spokane Valley started enforcing provisions of the sign code it adopted from Spokane County.
But some businesses say the crackdown on clutter has come at a price, and at Tuesday’s meeting, the City Council appeared poised to loosen parts of its sign code and hold off enforcing rules pertaining to permanent signs.
“If a guy has a lot of signs up but the place looks great, leave it alone,” said Ed Conley, who owns Conley’s Place and the White Elephant.
Growing discontent from business owners on Sprague came to a head in March when Conley publicly decried the threat of a significant fine if he didn’t remove an Irish-themed flag from his restaurant on the week of St. Patrick’s Day.
Other business owners testified at a council meeting that a ban on reader boards and other portable signs could threaten their bottom line or even their livelihood in businesses that aren’t directly on the street.
The council promised to take another look at the sign code. Since then, Conley’s flags have been deemed OK, and the City Council is reviewing a list of issues that could be changed.
Suggestions from the city attorney included defining further what the ordinance does and does not cover, defining exactly what a sign is and figuring out which permanent signs might be grandfathered in because they were up before the county passed its rules in 1991.
“Clearly this isn’t the last time we are going to tweak this thing,” said Councilman Rich Munson.
Many people reacted to the ban on portable signs by welding their reader boards to buildings or existing pole signs. Others made them “permanent” by turning them into makeshift monument signs.
That could still cause problems, though, as generally only one permanent sign is allowed per business, and permanent signs could be the target of the next round of enforcement.
“The council’s going to do some more information gathering before pole signs are enforced,” Councilman Steve Taylor said after the meeting.
The council members said they will spend time in the coming weeks looking at what exactly would have to come down when the rest of the sign ordinance is enforced.
Councilman Dick Denenny said he wants to get back to why the city enacted the sign code in the first place. “Is it your intent to get rid of a nice, clean reader board?” he asked others on the council.
Though it will be weeks before any legal change to the sign code takes place, Conley said he’s happy the council is taking his concerns seriously.
“The whole idea was to get them to stop and rethink things a little bit, and I think they’re doing that,” he said.