Sign Ordinance Violation Forces Company To Move Holiday Inflatables

A sign ordinance violation has forced a company to relocate a slew of inflatables advertising its Toys For Tots campaign to another location.

Reliable Heating and Air was recently told by Woodstock officials that its inflatables, which were installed as part of its effort to collect new, unwrapped toys for less fortunate children, violated the city’s sign ordinance.

“I just think with this time of year with something like this, I don’t really understand what’s wrong with this,” Daniel Jape, owner and comfort consultant with the company, told WSB-TV.

Woodstock City Manager Jeff Moon said the city’s ordinance prohibits the display of inflatables for all commercial businesses, no matter the content. Woodstock in November amended its sign ordinance to allow residents to display air or gas-filled devices between the months of October and January only on single-family residential properties.

Moon said the company was told they only had to move the inflatables, not its Toys For Tots Banner, as it’s allowed under the city’s sign ordinance.

“The banner has been up for two weeks and remains so today,” he said on Wednesday. Reliable has since relocated the inflatables to property next to its facility at 11075 Highway 92. That lot, which they lease for additional parking, is located in unincorporated Cherokee County. As of Wednesday afternoon, the inflatables remain up and running.

A federal court ruling several years “redefined” content in local sign ordinances, Moon said. In the past, the city could prohibit so-called off premise signs.

However, the court stipulated that by saying a sign was off-premise, it was regulating content, which the ruling deemed was illegal.

“The same was true for inflatables,” Moon said. “Whereby in the past the city could allow holiday inflatables, (but) prohibit the large purple gorillas or the waving man, the ruling meant that by saying holiday inflatables, we were regulating content.”

Woodstock had to tweak its ordinance to address air or gas-filled inflatables of all types. While the city can distinguish between zoning districts, it cannot distinguish by intent “because that would be regulating content,” the city manager said.

So, instead of the city risking its sign ordinance being thrown out on a court challenge, Moon said the City Council changed the ordinance to comply with the court ruling.

“I don’t think any of us particularly agree with it or like it, but it is the law,” he added.

Photo credit: Reliable Heating & Air’s Facebook page