Letter to the Editor: A Clear Example of What's Wrong with the Sign Ordinance

Today I decided to eat an early dinner at Mai-Lan’s Café. I’d wanted to eat there for a few months, but because her restaurant is in Oddfellows Hall basement, I kept forgetting, due to lack of a visible sign. A few weeks ago I noticed that there was a lovely and tasteful sign placed on the corner to Oddfellows, set back a bit from the sidewalk and clearly on private property. The sign had important information for Mai-Lan’s business – the days and hours open, location, and directions.

On my way there this afternoon, I noticed the sign was gone. I asked Mai-Lan what happened to her sign and she was visibly upset. She said it had been removed this morning; not just taken to the local police department here, but taken to San Juan Island. When she called the Planning Dept. to ask why, she was directed to the man hired by the county to remove signs. He told her that all signs in Eastsound would be removed, whether they were on private property or not. Mai-Lan asked the man when she could have her sign back, and the man said he didn’t know, he’d ‘check his schedule’. Mai-Lan lost customers today

Mai-Lan already had permission to put her sign there, from the landowner, Massacre Bay Realty, and from the owners of Passionate about Pies, who lease that property.

I am incredulous —  if no provisions were made in the sign ordinance to allow a local restaurant such as Mai-Lan’s to put a sign at the corner of a low-traffic, out-of-the-way road that leads to her business. It seems to me that Mai-Lan is caught in a catch-22.

I have some questions for the Planning Deprtment:1) Are there provisions that would allow Mai-Lan to display a sign for her restaurant on the street corner leading to it?  If not; why not?  2) Can Mai-Lan apply for a permit to have her sign there without fearing its regular removal? 3) If a private property owner gives permission for someone to put up a sign on her property, isn’t that out of the jurisdiction of the county sign ordinance? 4) How does a business owner like Mai-Lan find out about what is permissible, and would a letter from the landowner to the Planning Department suffice in giving her amnesty from a sign ordinance that will kill her business if she is not allowed to have a sign where she needs one?

I am unhappy with the sign ordinance for many reasons, and what I witnessed today at Mai-Lan’s leaves no doubt that it’s time to go back to the drawing board on the sign ordinance. The sign ordinance was not well thought out, nor was input from the bulk of our citizenship taken into account when decisions affecting us all were made. I encourage all citizens who are unhappy with the sign ordinance to come forward, come together, and work together on making our voices and our wishes heard. Not allowing Mai-Lan to have her sign hurts her business and in turn, hurts the Oddfellows, who use the rent monies collected to do a lot of good in this community.

Signs and sandwich boards have always been our way to communicate about community happenings, weddings, dances, yard sales, theater productions, non-profit fundraisers, cottage industries, and small mom-and-pop businesses. Things worked before. They’re not working now. I hope that people let the county council and planning department know how they feel about the sign ordinance. I hope they come forward to support people like Mai-Lan, and help restore the sense of intimacy and charm about this community that we (and our visitors) all love. Bring back the signs.

Sadie Bailey, Eastsound