Yuba City merchants oppose sign law revision

Yuba City is trying to walk a tight rope between businesses that say banners and billboards make them money and the people who think they're eyesores.

About 20 people, including a half-dozen ad-hoc committee members, met Tuesday to advise two City Council members on what they should do to control business signs without stifling cash registers.

"These signs work. They make me money," said Chris Swinney, owner of Evans Furniture Gallery. "It seems like an awkward time to get tough."

This isn't the city's first attempt at regulating signs. Officials passed an ordinance in 2006 prohibiting signs involving tents, A-frame sandwich boards, moving mannequins and electronic signs.

Business owners in 2009 spoke out, however, when officials started cracking down on signs on highways 20 and 99.

The city relaxed restrictions for six months, allowing business one sign per business that would otherwise violate city code. Those extensions have continued as economic conditions have failed to improve as City Council members had hoped.

The extensions have gone on for three years, said Tim McKenna, president of the Yuba City Downtown Business Association.

"At what point do we say, 'Business is OK,'" he asked.

According to Tiffani Williams, owner of The Refuge Restaurant and Lounge, the recovery is not yet strong enough. She said the number of businesses sitting vacant is still too high. Limiting an owner's ability to advertise will make sure they stay that way by driving off potential renters, Williams said.

"The more we continue to limit the ways people are making money, the more we'll continue to have ... vacancies," she told the committee.

Council members decided in 2006 that too many signs would hinder the city's attraction to owners looking to set up shop, said Aaron Busch, director of community development. The think was a glut of gaudy signs makes the town look trashy.

Without some sort of regulation, streets will start to "look like a carnival," said Mayor John Miller.

Signs and banners help him create excitement for a sale or special event, Swinney said. "You take all the flags down, all the banners, it's just a flat old retail business. There's no event. There's no excitement."

Zac Repka, representing the Yuba Sutter Chamber of Commerce, suggested the city set up a cheap way to review designs for the A-frame signs sitting on sidewalks and outside businesses. Then officials can block ugly designs.

Officials would struggle to create guidelines dictating aesthetic choices, Busch said. The city can limit concrete specifications, like the size of signs and prohibit building them with certain types of materials. Establishing design guidelines, however, gets tricky.

"Beauty's in the eye of the beholder," Busch said. "It's all in interpretation."

Tyson Schoel with Yuba City-based Sign Solutions said Las Vegas did exactly that when city officials there told him a sign he was working on had to be blue, not green.

"You get to become the holder and say what's beautiful," he said.

Miller and Dukes will consider their advisers' input into account and present a recommendation to their fellow city ccouncil members. Both men seemed to lean toward returning to tighter restrictions.

"It was an idea that sounded good," Dukes said of allowing business to throw up banners for the last few years. "But at what point is the business environment good enough to stop doing that?"

CONTACT reporter Jonathan Edwards at jedwards@appeal-democrat.com or 749-4780. Find him on Facebook at /ADjedwards or on Twitter at @ADjedwards.