HOW TO
ENGRAVING BYBY REGULATIONS ASHLEY DAVIDBRAY HICKEY
Under the Radar
W
hile much of the world stopped in 2020, one thing did not: sign code updates. In some cases, while everyone was distracted and businesses were struggling to survive, sign code changes occurred under the radar, which has led to some troublesome results. Some of these communities are finally responding to the five-year-old Supreme Court case, Reed v. Town of Gilbert. This court ruling required virtually every municipality in the United States to explore whether their sign codes were compliant with this landmark court ruling, which prohibits distinctions based on speech. Often as they dig into this issue, they look at a few other things while they’re “under the hood.” And sometimes, without expert in-
14
Sign Builder Illustrated
February 2021
put, they come up with some pretty crazy ideas. That’s why it is so important that ISA (or one of our Affiliates) be involved, to ensure that our industry’s voices are heard—and so are our end users. One example are the significant restrictions on sign location, among other things, proposed by the South Salt Lake, Utah planning commission. The commission has developed these changes without seeking input from the sign and graphics industry or the local business community. International Sign Assocation member company YESCO, a one hundredyear-old sign company based in Salt Lake City, found out about the proposed changes and reached out to our association for help. In a coordinated effort, while ISA’s
advocacy team explored the proposal and pointed out deficiencies in the proposal to city planners, YESCO reached out to business owners to make them aware of the situation. YESCO provided 300 signatures from businesses that opposed the proposed changes in just a few days. That was enough to sway the commission, which tabled code changes until it could get more input; as a result, this gave ISA a chance to further analyze their proposed revisions to offer more reasonable solutions. There are legitimate reasons that the city needed to tweak its existing sign code, which hadn’t been updated for eighteen years. It also needed to conform to recent changes in state law. But it’s important that we have a seat at the table before or as these discussignshop.com
Photo (Salt Lake City): Shutterstock/ f11photo.
Sign code changes can sometimes happen without notice.
