ANAHEIM : Ordinance Bans Rotating Ad Signs

Rotating signs, which proliferated across suburbia for almost 40 years as a novel way to advertise for businesses and shopping centers, have been banned in the city’s effort to make over its appearance with new zoning and building codes.

Earlier this month, the City Council passed an ordinance to bar the spinning beacons of neon and plastic. The move was made to eliminate what many consider to be examples of bad taste that no longer fit the city’s new image. Existing signs will be allowed to remain.

The rotating planet atop the Satellite Shopping Center off Katella Avenue is perhaps one such sign that comes to mind in Anaheim--a museum-quality classic, with beams and lights that mirror the Tomorrowland image of nearby Disneyland.

Others, such as the Union 76 service station ball and the bright yellow shell on another gasoline station, are among the widely used spinning signs that developers will no longer be able to erect. “There’s been excessive signage that has been allowed,” said John Poole, a city code-enforcement manager.

Besides regulating new signs, the city’s code-enforcement officials recently embarked on a campaign to clean up the city’s strip malls by requiring landlords to provide proper landscaping and trash concealment. Near Disneyland and the Anaheim Convention Center, city planners also unveiled guidelines last fall to prohibit builders’ use of cheap-looking materials, such as fake wood and mirrored glass.

Without completely opting for what some have called the “Irvinefication” of Anaheim with fully regulated development, Poole said, the city hopes that the changes will help the county’s oldest city keep pace with changing times and newer cities in the county.