The Front Porch: Digital billboard on 29th Avenue lights up controversy

“There’s no such thing as quittin’ time,” reads the Toyota Tundra ad on a digital billboard on 29th Avenue.

It seems to be true for the billboard: After a few seconds the truck ad disappears and another flashes on the LED screen, this one for The Tin Roof furniture store. Then a plump, bearded man and a plate of seafood team up to promote Coeur d’Alene Casino’s “Bigger Better Buffet,” and soon after that appears that ubiquitous grinner, TV’s Rachael Ray. At least it’s not an audio billboard.

The billboard, in the 2800 block of East 29th Avenue in front of a line of businesses that includes Studio K and Maggie’s South Hill Grill, stands tall with its bright display as a specimen of the latest technology in outdoor advertising. It’s also a focal point of South Hill residents who are trying to save Spokane from becoming “a cheap version of Las Vegas,” to quote one City Council candidate.

To another opponent, retired graphic designer Suzanne Markham, the billboard is more than hard on the eyes. It sets a “horrible precedent” for what she fears will follow: a slew of big, flashing and extremely bright digital advertisements.

It also irks her that Lamar Advertising Co., which put the digital display in the billboard, is breaking city regulations and getting away with it. That’s her interpretation. Lamar’s general manager disagrees.

Several years ago, Markham led a group called Citizens for a Scenic Spokane – affiliated with the national billboard foe Scenic America (motto: “Change is inevitable, ugliness is not”) – that pushed for new rules to limit what they saw as a proliferation of billboards.

Markham said the advent of “monopole technology” – the big sign on a big metal rod – has made billboards more intrusive, uglier, “more monstrous.”

During her frequent travels, she said, she can’t help but notice that billboards are fewer in other cities.

“And then you come home, and you’re like, Why are people crapping in their own backyard?”

The city’s billboard regulations became effective in November 2001. The new rules imposed three major limits:

“No new billboards could be put up anywhere in the city.

“Any existing billboard couldn’t be moved or made bigger or taller or extended in any way.

“No billboards could be structurally altered.

“It was a dead issue in 2001, or so we thought,” Markham said. “But what we have here is a very sneaky industry.”

At issue is the meaning of “structurally altered.”

Duane Halliday, Lamar’s general manager and vice president in Spokane, said the billboard’s size and structure remain the same – only the technology is different. The billboard hasn’t always been digital, but it’s always had more than one face: It used to have panels that rotated to create new images. Now, he said, “clients can change their artwork daily, whereas before it had to be changed manually.”

The digital workings “probably” do require more power than a billboard with rotating panels, Halliday said, but “whether the power box is larger had nothing to do with being out of compliance.”

Anyway, he said, the stretch of 29th where the digital billboard sits has “far more on-premise signs that are blinking and flashing.” He thinks the billboard industry is being unfairly singled out.

It’s true that while the billboard stands out, it’s not the only light-up attraction in the neighborhood.

Wheel Sport, in the same strip of businesses as Studio K, announces itself with big white lights, as does the Zip’s fast-food joint a few doors down. Less than a block away, China South’s curving roof is outlined in red neon.

And under the digital billboard sits a revolving sign advertising Studio K Bar & Grill’s $2 Bloody Marys. Considering the sign overtop, the Studio K sign seems almost quaint, though, maybe because only one of its light bulbs seems to be working. Maybe because its palm tree isn’t life-size.

To the residents trying to get the digital billboard turned off, the real difference is its precarious relationship with city regulations.

A city’s electrical inspector noted two things in his 2006 check of the billboard: “Sign service and power OK” and “Sign updated against city code.”

It’s unclear why the sign remains up even after a city worker found it violated city code, said Marlene Feist, a spokeswoman for the city. It’s possible that employee wasn’t qualified to make the determination.

In any case, “We’re trying to determine whether we believe it qualifies as structural modification,” she said.

If the city finds that the billboard does break the rules, a code infraction would be filed against Lamar. If that doesn’t work, “it’s possible we could end up in litigation over an issue like that,” Feist said.

For Richard Rush, who’s one of several candidates challenging Brad Stark for the City Council’s South District seat, trying to get the billboard turned off is all about making progress toward a city outlined in the Comprehensive Plan, a city of pedestrian-friendly business districts and attractive public spaces.

“We’re going to look like a cheap version of Las Vegas in a minute here, if we’re not careful,” Rush said.