Garden Grove Sign Plan to Be Reconsidered : City Government: Civil libertarians and minority groups have called the city’s plan for signs in English unconstitutional.

Faced with organized opposition from the Asian business community and the threat of a lawsuit, city officials decided Monday to reconsider a proposal to make all businesses display signs in English.

The controversial ordinance, which civil libertarians and minority groups called unconstitutional, was to be part of a major overhaul of the city’s billboard code.

But Korean businesses maintained that they scoured the city and found only nine signs that contained no English. Leading the opposition, Edward Cho, chairman of the development Committee for Koreatown, came to the council with a petition signed by the nine businesses pledging to voluntarily add English to their signs.

Cho was also armed with a proposed lawsuit prepared by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California.

The City Council voted 5 to 0 to send the ordinance back to the Planning Commission for further study.

The Garden Grove ordinance is similar to those adopted in at least six other Southern California cities, none of which are in Orange County.

Garden Grove’s ordinance would require that “all signs containing non-English letters shall also individually include English characters” and that the letters be visible from the public right-of-way or the nearest point of access. The ordinance would also require an English statement of the nature of the business, whether a bakery, auto repair shop or dentist.

The sign ordinance was approved by the Planning Commission on Aug. 24 by a 6-0 vote, just a month after a federal court struck down a similar ordinance in Pomona, ruling that it was too vague and violated the free speech, equal protection and due process clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

Attorneys for Garden Grove maintain that their ordinance would pass constitutional muster.

But City Manager George L. Tindall said Monday that language in the ordinance “needs to be more clearly defined.”

Tindall denied that the threat of lawsuits prompted the decision to send the ordinance back for revisions, but he added, “Nobody wants to get involved in a lawsuit.”

Both foes and supporters of the measure took pains to avoid making the issue a racial one.

“Mainly it’s for health and public safety, so that police and fire can find an address easily,” said Melvin W. Killingbeck, a Planning Commission member. “Race didn’t enter into it at all.”