The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Grandma's Attic owners Mary Ann Zichwic and Shirl Daly say their business will suffer if the city forces them to take down their sandwich-board sign.

Sign law irks city's merchants

City to cite businesses; $25 fine for erecting sandwich-board signs

By LESTER CHANG

Hundreds of merchants using "sandwich board" signs to attract business may get on the bad side of City Hall--and pay for it.

The City Council voted April 8 to cite businesses that use the signs, which have been outlawed in Sunnyvale but have been used for years nonetheless to attract passersby off the street.

The city will issue two notices to businesses that break the law and then give citations of $25 each for repeat violators.

The action could spell the end of some small businesses, complained Mary Ann Zichwic, co-owner of Grandma's Attic on the 500 block of Murphy Avenue. The store sells antiques and secondhand furniture.

Zichwic and surrounding stores in the past have posted A-frame signs at the intersection of El Camino Real and Murphy Avenue, but were instructed by the city in March to take them down.

Prior to the city's demand, Zichwic and Daly had the sign up for 14 months.

Since the removal of the sign, the two businesswomen said they have seen daily sales drop from a few hundred dollars to about $30.

"We are two grandmas who are trying to make it, and we need to have the sign to stay alive," Zichwic said in an interview with The Sun.

Many council members said they didn't want to force merchants out of business, but just wanted to encourage them to follow the law. They said the council took the action because of public complaints about the A-frame signs.

But before the notices and citations are handed out, the city will make an effort to encourage businesses in violation to take the signs down, said Dyane Matas, the city's neighborhood preservation officer, who oversees city-code compliance.

Councilman Jack Walker said Zichwic and other business owners who don't like the law should sit down with city officials to find alternatives to the use of A-frame signs. Officials said they would be open to the idea of installing signs to direct motorists to businesses. The city would also like storekeepers to work with landlords to put up signs in shopping areas listing their businesses, he said.

"We are here to try to set up regulations that everybody complies to," he said, "to make the city an attractive place to be."

Steve Kalinka, who owns Mail & More, a mail distribution and packaging store also located on the 500 block of Murphy Avenue, complained that the city was selective in its enforcement of the sign law.

Kalinka said car dealerships have been allowed to leave either banners or inflatables up on their properties longer than their permits allowed.

While that's true, the situation existed because there were no enforcement methods prior to the City Council's action, city officials said.

The banners and inflatable advertisements are generally allowed to be used for a maximum of 30 days, a city report stated.

Kalinka also complained that the city gives special treatment to businesses on the 100 block of S. Murphy Avenue.

Businesses there are allowed to use the sandwich-board signs because the area has been designated by the city as having historical significance. The area was the city's first and only downtown.

Kalinka said at least one building on the 500 block of Murphy Avenue is older than most buildings in the old downtown area.

Suzi Blackman, executive director of the Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce, asked the city to withhold enforcing the sign law. But Walker said the council couldn't act on her request because it was considering only the use of the citation process.

Blackman said some signs are unattractive but necessary for small businesses to survive.

The City Council also instructed city staff members to conduct surveys of areas with a large number of the signs, and eliminated a fee businesses pay for permits for temporary signs, banners and "inflatable advertising."

This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, April 23, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.