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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FASI Board Member Weinstein Speaks at National Planning Conference
Alan Weinstein, an acknowledged expert on planning, who holds a joint faculty appointment at Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, and also serves as director of the colleges’ Law & Public Policy Program, will speak at two separate sessions at the 2017 American Planning Association’s National […]
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What the Street Graphics Books Say About Signs
In 1971, the American Planning Association (APA) began distributing a book called Street Graphics and the Law, which was authored by Daniel Mandelker and William Ewald. It recommended the uncompensated taking of signs and governmental control of signs’ design, message and content. The authors stated that their conclusions were substantially based on 1956 research conducted […]
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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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What Has the Supreme Court Said About On-premise Signage?
Supreme Court cases that involve on-premise signage The 1st Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. […]
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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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SGIA Journal Features FASI Article on the Reed v. Gilbert Aftermath
Wade Swormstedt, the Executive Director for FASI, wrote an article for the SGIA Journal’s January/February 2017 issue entitled “Content Neutrality and Signs: The Reed v. Gilbert decision and the aftermath.” Although the actual article is only available online to subscribers, the basic copy is presented here. On June 18, 2015, the Supreme Court of the […]
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