A 45-year-old, outdoor-advertising act in Tennessee has been declared unconstitutional by a Memphis district judge, because of content-neutrality issues. An April 3, 2017 article in U. S. Today states, “U.S. District Judge Jon P. McCalla said the 1972 law ‘does not survive First Amendment scrutiny’ because it bans some forms of commercial and non-commercial speech […]
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What are Some Recommendations for Regulating Temporary Signage?
Writing sign codes can be challenging for city planners and administrators who have had no formal training abut the nuances of on-premise signage. But a sub-category of this task, writing regulations specifically for temporary signage, presents an even more perplexing problem. Wendy Moeller, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based planner (AICP), who recently served as president of the […]
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Is Your Sign Code Content Neutral? Reed v. Gilbert Warns it Should Be
Quite often, sign codes are primarily governed by their definitions. Many of the definitions are about types of signs: temporary, projecting, banners, fascia, freestanding, pole-mounted, etc. Quite often, however, signs are defined by their content: political, real estate, commercial, yard sale, etc. If a sign is blank, you can still tell what kind of sign it […]
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