La Cañada pizza shop owner serves up a new sign idea
In 2015, city officials told La Cañada Imports owner Bill Kerimo they’d have to remove a pole sign for his business that had stood for 40 years in the public right of way.
Erected on part of the property that fell under the city’s responsibility, the sign presented a liability, the La Cañada Flintridge City Council decreed. It also wasn’t in keeping with the overall aesthetic vision for Foothill Boulevard businesses, which indicate a preference for low-profile monument signs over their pole-mounted predecessors.
Kerimo claimed in a public hearing that losing the sign would harm his business and prevent new customers from seeing and patronizing his pizza shop and deli.
“If you guys want to remove this pole sign, I don’t know what’s going to happen to my business, honestly,” he said at a May 18, 2015, meeting.
Join the conversation on Facebook >>
But the council voted 4-1 (Len Pieroni cast the dissenting vote) to have the sign removed. One year later, on June 16, 2016, a work crew demolished it and a small wall and hedge that surrounded it.
Last month, to help make up for what he says has been a perceivable dip in business, Kerimo applied to have a new monument sign installed at on the property at 1537 Foothill Blvd, owned along with the adjacent 7-Eleven by landlord Lacy Park Real Estate Investment.
Council members had encouraged Kerimo to collaborate with 7-Eleven about sharing their sign, grandfathered in by county officials in 1970, or building a new joint monument sign. The Imports owner said in a recent interview the space he was tentatively offered by his corporate neighbor was simply too small.
“They gave me 10 inches,” he said of 7-Eleven’s proposal. “For 10 inches, there’s no reason for me to do that, so I went to the city to get my own sign.”
The overall design and lettering of Kerimo’s new monument sign was approved in a Jan. 19 meeting of the La Cañada Flintridge Design Commission. City figures indicate the cost of submitting plans for a design review is about $780.
The next step for Kerimo is to submit plans to the city’s Building and Safety division, which will consider the proposed sign’s placement and construction, according to deputy development director Susan Koleda. Submission costs vary, but Koleda said a recent permit cost the applicant $719. Exterior illumination could require another permit at an additional cost.
“(Then) there’s a record of the permits and the process it went through, so 40 years from now when someone says, ‘Is that in the public right of way?’ we’ll know,” Koleda said.
Once permits are issued, the installation process is left up to the business owner, although the final project won’t be signed off until an inspection of the work is done to ensure compliance to city standards, she added.
--
Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com
Twitter: @SaraCardine
MORE BUSINESS
Weekend storms bring fresh snow to Mt. Waterman Ski Lifts
