Businesses Like Oceanside’s New Relaxed Sign Law

A sign ordinance that won a round of applause from the businessmen it is designed to control passed the City Council by a 3-2 vote Wednesday night.

The legislation eases controls on signs but changes enforcement procedures to conform with state law. A sign control law in effect since 1983 contained flawed language, which prevented the city from enforcing some of the sign regulations.

Mayor Larry Bagley and Councilmen Sam Williamson and John MacDonald voted for the changes, while Councilmen Ted Marioncelli and Walter Gilbert sought to retain many of the stricter provisions of the former law, which city planning commissioners had recommended last month.

The council chambers were packed with Oceanside merchants, each with his or her own “horror story” of how the former sign ordinance was too strict.

Williamson, a member of the committee that proposed the relaxed sign regulations, defended the proposal with a slide show showing tasteful but nonconforming signs and tasteless but conforming ones.

“What we are trying to do here is to legislate good taste,” Bagley said. “A sign ordinance is only as good as the willingness of businessmen to uphold it,” he added, opting for the new legislation, which was written with the cooperation of the city’s merchants.

Sign heights and sizes were increased, painted wall signs legalized, and the numbers and types of advertising devices enlarged.

MacDonald, the swing vote that passed the ordinance, said he would prefer to have no sign ordinance at all rather than an unenforceable law like the one now on the city’s books.

Only a few voices were heard in opposition to the new ordinance. Those residents felt that relaxation of sign controls was a step backward in improving the city’s image.