Need a Sign? Apply for a Permit

Editor's Note: This story has been revised. The ZEO had a new administrative procedure approved to carry out existing regulations, not new ones.

Lori Knouse and her husband were operating a tag sale in their yard one Friday morning in July, when a man walked up to her and asked, "Are you in charge?"

According to her recollection, Knouse said he then asked, "'So you don't know you need a permit for a tag sale?' and I said, 'No. Since when?' And he said, 'Oh it started last month.'"

The man was Town Zoning Enforcement Officer Joe Chapman and he was not saying permits were needed to hold a tag sale. Rather, he was referring to the signs.

Chapman said one does not need a permit to erect a sign in their front yard, though permits are now needed for signs posted off the premises.

It is not uncommon to see signs advertising a sale at a local boutique, landscaping services, tag sales and church festivals. Drivers have plenty to read while passing greens, shopping centers and street corners, and it won't be long before signs for political candidates start cropping up on front lawns all over town.

But these signs have traditionally been a hodge podge of different shapes and sizes. Some have been tacked up on trees and telephone poles (The latter is illegal, according to state statutes.), and tag sale signs have often been left up long after the event was over.

Chapman believes he has a solution to past problems, which still allows businesses and private organizations to benefit from temporary signs.

Chapman proposed a new set procedure to carry out existing regulations for temporary signs to the Planning & Zoning Commission, which approved a permitting process for commercial businesses, tag sales and private/non-profits in June.

Planning & Zoning Commission Chairman Rick Zini said the streamlined process will allow people to obtain a permit administratively at Town Hall, rather than by going before the commission.

"I understand the hardship for businesses that are so far from the road," Chapman said of the need to be visible to customers. "Here's a program that will allow them to do that in a limited way."

Chapman said the purpose of the permits are "to give us control, not only of the signs that are out there, but the location and the size."

There is a $5 fee for 15-day temporary signs, which may be applied for four times a year with a minimum of 28 days in between permits.

Businesses can only have one 6 square-foot sign at the location where the business is conducted. However, Chapman said there is some flexibility within the regulations for tag sales.

Those who register for tag sale signs may use an aggregate of six square feet for their signage in any combination, Chapman said, including three 2-by-2s, two 3-by-2s and six one-by-ones.

"The Planning & Zoning Commission allows me to do it," Chapman said of the flexibility.

All signs must be in the ground or independently supported.

A form for a tag sale must have the address where it is taking place and the date it is being held.

"It's saving the taxpayers the time for me to drive around and find this stuff," Chapman said of looking for illegal signs, adding, "And it protects the signs that are legal."

The registration forms are one page with about six questions each. "It takes longer to drive here than to fill it out," he said.

Taking it Down

Tag sale signs can be posted no earlier than three days before the event and must be taken down immediately afterward. And businesses who keep a sign up past the permitted period of time may lose it.

"I usually go into the business as a courtesy and they take it down," Chapman said of violators. "If I come again and they keep doing it, I'll take the sign and they can pick it up.

"In extreme cases, a chronic commercial violator would get their sign back when conditions are met. I suspect that 99 percent of the businesses will never get to that point."

Public Reaction

Since the new permit process went into effect, Chapman said he has only heard two objections out of the more than 40 business owners he talked to.

"One said, 'I've been here 20 years and never had a sign,'" Chapman recalled. "Another said it should be $25 not five dollars."

However, Tamar Klein, who owns I Spy Consignments, 415 Main Street, who is right in the heart of the state Department of Transportation's massive project to widen portions of Route 25, wants a more liberal policy.

"It's difficult to get through here," she said. "People don't want to get stuck."

Traffic going past the front of the boutique is one-way and northbound traffic is detoured before drivers reach the store. The detour takes vehicles from Main Street to Brook Street, where a temporary traffic light makes it easier to turn left on Pepper Street, while heading back toward Route 25.

"I put one sign at the end of Brook Street by the intersection and the ZEO removed it," Klein said. "He said I could get a permit for 15 days four times a year, no sooner than 28 days apart. The construction will go on for at least six months.

"I tried to make my signs look nice and not trashy. I tried to do it in a nice way. I'm very frustrated."

As for Lisa Knouse, her husband went to Monroe Town Hall that Friday, filled out a registration form and paid the five dollar fee. She said it only took about 20 minutes and that the fee "wasn't that much," but she thought there should have been official public notice of the new signs policy before it was enforced.

"It was just very frustrating that they were enforcing something before they informed the public about it," Knouse said. "Especially in the summer. This is tag sale season. They should have put it on the Patch or in the Courier: 'Just be advised there is a $5 fee,' which isn’t much. I try to follow all of the rules. A lot of people didn't know about it."