Temple City Strives for Sign Law That’s Acceptable to All

City officials are trying to hammer out a draft ordinance that would require some English on business signs and still protect merchants’ freedom of speech.

In recent letters to City Manager Karl Koski, fire and law enforcement officials indicated that English on signs would help them better identify businesses during an emergency.

Koski said he and other city officials hope that the information would justify the requirement for the Roman alphabet on business signs, based on health and safety reasons.

When completed, a draft ordinance would be presented to the city’s Planning Commission for review, perhaps in seven to 10 days, Koski said.

Last month, the city’s 1985 sign ordinance requiring that 50% of each business sign be in the Roman alphabet was challenged by two civil rights groups on constitutional grounds.

The two Southern California groups, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, based their challenge on a July federal court decision striking down a similar ordinance in Pomona.

In the decision, U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi said language requirements in the Pomona ordinance violated residents’ constitutional rights to free speech and commercial speech and discriminated on the basis of national origin.

In September, the two law groups asked Temple City to voluntarily repeal the language requirement in its sign ordinance. The City Council rejected the proposal, choosing only to suspend enforcement.

But the council directed its staff to work with the law groups to draft a revised ordinance based on constitutional reasons, such as health and safety factors.

In an Oct. 10 letter to Koski, Assistant Fire Chief Harold McCann said English on signs would make reporting emergencies easier. “Many times people can’t see addresses,” McCann said. “Therefore they rely on the name of a business or the type of business.”

In interviews Tuesday, McCann and a spokesman for the sheriff said an acceptable alternative to English on business signs would be uniform identification signs, in English, which all merchants would place in a prominent position.

McCann said uniform signs would solve the identification problem. “That’s the only reason we care, so we can find them,” he said.

Lt. Phillip Bullington of the Sheriff’s office, said such identification signs, which he has seen in Monterey Park, would also help identify businesses that do use English on their signs but whose names do not indicate the type of business.

BACKGROUND

In July, a federal court struck down a Pomona sign ordinance that said business signs with foreign characters must be at least half in the Roman alphabet. Citing that ruling, two civil rights law groups asked Temple City to voluntarily repeal language restrictions in its ordinance, but the City Council agreed only to suspend enforcement. The city is working with the law groups to draft a compromise ordinance.