Sign Controversy Being Addressed

by Bobby Blair 3/8/10

Town Planner Karen Sherman (left) and Building Inspector Peter Tartakoff presented selectmen Monday night with a set of revised General By-Laws for the licensing of temporary portable signs within the right-of-way and on public property.

The revisions sprung from a "sandwich board sign flap" earlier this fall when a letter to businesses downtown requested they remove those sandwich boards from sidewalks.

Chris Leoncini owner of the Holliston Superette believed at the time that his sign advertising his shop's 99-cent coffee was in compliance of the law as he removed the sandwich board each evening from the sidewalk.

Other downtown businesses simply moved their boards onto their door stoops.

The six-page memorandum also calls for amendments to zoning by-law provisions for private property. Sherman told selectmen "It's a place to start, a point of discussion" referring to the sign proposals. Changes to the By-Laws would be addressed at Town Meeting.

Sherman did reference the sandwich boards advertising local events which now stand in front of Town Hall by saying "The six boards out front -- I doubt that you could read but the two of these, the ones on the ends." The number of signs at Town Hall had fallen to just one shortly after the sign controversary began. Veterans gathering for Veterans Day services on November 11th had noted how disgraceful the signs had made the town's war memorials look.

Posted in Neighborhood, News.

Comment on this article | E-mail this article