Business Owners Lit Up by Sign Law

The controversial ordinance regulating signs on Mount Kisco businesses still has some local merchants upset. 

The Mount Kisco Village Board unanimously approved a revised measure in September, which prohibits neon-lit signage except for an "open" sign, after two years of wrangling with businesses.  The ordinance on signs had not been updated since the 1960s.

Despite revisions, some merchants say the regulations are a financial imposition and simply bad for business.

Ralph Nuzzi, the owner of Cobbler's Corner on East Main Street, said electric signs help draw in customers and reflect a business's personality.

"Everything is going look blah. It takes the individuality away," Nuzzi said.

Robert Ambrosio, who owns Smokers Harbor on Main Street, said that customers would not be able to see the store without lit signs.

"The neon signs caught your eye," Ambrosio said.  "Without it, it puts this town back in the dark ages."

Village Trustee Anthony Markus said the prohibition on lit signs is a matter of aesthetics and will encourage a "village atmosphere" in the downtown area.

"The concept is that the Budweiser-type sign are not the type of signs we wanted in the village," Markus said.  "We want to make the village as attractive and clean as we possibly can without hindering our business community."

The ordinance allows one electric open sign of up to 220 square inches that must be turned off when the store is closed.

Ambrosio said local businesses need all the exposure they can get.  "These stuffed shirts, I don't know what they want," he said. "They come up with these nonsensical laws. Who cares? Did anyone complain? I doubt it."

Markus said the board tried hard to accommodate business owners' concerns, including adding an amortization period which would allow businesses up to 10 years to replace signage based on the cost of the new signs.

The initial version of the ordinance passed the Village Board in February 2009, and businesses were given until March 1, 2009 to remove illegal signage, which includes lighted signs, sandwich boards and banners. Non-compliant businesses are subject to fines ranging from $250 to $2,500, but Markus said businesses are given a fair amount of warning before receiving a fine. 

In another revision to the ordinance, the village expanded the commercial districts where light box signs can be used. Light box signs cannot be used on Main Street from Kisco to Moore Avenues, all of South Moger Avenue and part of Lexington Avenue.

Merchants wanted the ordinance to include a grandfather clause, which would allow businesses with prior permits to keep their existing signs.

"They should have honored all the permits that were already issued," Nuzzi said.

Nuzzi also said the new law was "rammed down people's throats."

Markus, however, said that in addition to the public comment period, Nuzzi and another business owner were invited to share their ideas at work sessions with the village board committee in charge of revising the ordinance.

At one point, merchants were contemplating bringing a lawsuit against the village to stop the ordinance. Ultimately, the law was unanimously passed during a September meeting, during which no one publicly expressed opposition.

"By the lack of attendance here tonight, I presume [the law is] acceptable," Mayor Michael Cindrich said at the time.

Ambrosio suggested that business owners may have been so frustrated, "they threw up their hands."

For his part, Nuzzi said he expected a new sign to cost a few thousand dollars and he would wait for the building's landlord to replace it.

Nuzzi and Ambrosio said the village board should worry about more pressing issues such as crime and the sluggish economy.