Merchants Called In, Told to Move Signs : Agoura Hills Isn’t Taking Its New Neon Law Lightly

Neon signs may be the latest thing at trendy shops and boutiques, but they aren’t likely to come into vogue in Agoura Hills.

Merchants were summoned to City Hall on Friday to hear a city prosecutor warn that all outdoor and even some indoor neon signs are illegal and that those that flout the law by using them face jail or fines or both.

Neon was outlawed eight months ago when the City Council enacted a tough sign ordinance designed primarily to control billboards and large signs on poles. Similar ordinances are in effect in nearby Westlake Village and Thousand Oaks. Since then, Agoura Hills officials have spent most of their time enforcing the new law against highly visible outdoor advertising.

But it was Barbara Lobash’s turn to come under scrutiny Friday when she was called before City Prosecutor Michele C. Beal to discuss the modest sign in the window of her yogurt shop.

Lobash, who opened her store in a Kanan Road shopping center 13 months ago, thought her stylized green, purple and red neon sign would be exempt from the new law because it was in use before the ordinance was enacted.

But Beal told her that it is illegal because she did not have a permit for it at the time of the council vote. Beal said the sign must be moved back at least a foot from the window to comply with the ordinance. Then the sign would be classified as a display, which is legal, she said.

“I can’t hang it back from the window,” Lobash said later. “I’ve got a zillion kids that come in here. It would be a hazard if it was hanging where they could pull on it. And I can’t move the sign to the back of the store where nobody would see it. I need it to stay in business.”

When gas leaked out of her sign’s tubing and it briefly quit working earlier this year, the yogurt business abruptly dropped 20%, she said.

A few doors away, computer shop manager Larry Mackey was waiting Friday for an electrician to move his green neon sign 12 inches from his front plate-glass window. He said he has plenty of space to relocate his $700 sign but is still opposed to the ordinance.

“It’s insane,” Mackey said. “We’re going to move it a foot and it will still be facing the window. But it will be considered a display by the city, not a sign. I don’t see any point to the whole thing.”

Nearby, vacuum cleaner shop manager B. J. Bennett stood at the rear of his shop, beneath his four-foot-square blue and red neon “sales and service” sign. He bolted it to a back wall after being told it was illegal in the front window.

“It looked good in the window at night. But it looks pretty good here also. It gets dark early now, and, when it does, it shows up pretty well through the store.” He philosophically reckoned that the brief usefulness of the sign gives him “an hour of good business a day.”

Neon also was on the move Friday at other shopping centers. Kanan Road liquor store owner Jerry Dempton was preparing to shift four beer signs out of his front window and onto a rear cooler wall. “It’s ridiculous. We need these signs in our business. Otherwise, people think we’re closed,” he said.

Neighboring print shop operator Magda Anav said her large sign was moved the obligatory 12 inches away from the window. “I don’t think it makes any difference. People can still see it. And neon is still neon,” she said.

Prosecutor Beal said most of the 10 shopkeepers called before her Friday promised cooperation after she explained the city’s intent to enforce its new ordinance “equally” among all merchants.

One businessman, Roadside Drive liquor store operator Kim Coffin, was cleared of violating the neon restriction when he proved to Beal that his store’s beer signs were actually flat plastic that was made to look like neon.

City Planning Director Paul Williams said he hopes Beal’s merchant meetings will make other Agoura Hills businessmen see the light on neon. He said the crackdown will be stepped up when a new zoning-enforcement officer is hired to replace one who recently resigned.

Meanwhile, over in a Thousand Oaks Boulevard pizza parlor, restaurant proprietor Nissim Eli stood behind his bright neon “open” sign, hoping that the enforcement officer does not get hired anytime soon.

“I need this sign and I can’t hang it any farther from the window,” he said. “From the outside, you can’t tell if we’re open or not without this. In this city, we have to fight for every customer we get.”

Said his wife, Julia Eli: “That neon rule is a silly rule. It’s a silly City Council we have.”