City Eases Sign Rules That It Once Enforced to the Letter : * Advertising: Pico Rivera relaxes strict limitations that included prohibitions on window displays and Christmas promotions. Other local cities have similar laws.

Just in time for the Christmas shopping season, Pico Rivera is giving its merchants a boost by making it easier for them to advertise their businesses. The City Council Monday is expected to relax the city’s strict sign laws.

In Pico Rivera, as in other Southeast area cities, sign laws can be complicated, cumbersome, convoluted and even humorous. City officials say the rules are necessary, however, because they see their towns’ images reflected in every sign.

Before the changes, Pico Rivera merchants were forbidden to place signs or display merchandise in their windows. A sign advertising a Christmas or holiday special was forbidden without a permit. Business people could not place signs on the sides of their buildings or over their delivery doors. And a sign could include little more than the name of the business and its address.

Many businesses ignored the rules until the city began an enforcement campaign two years ago. More than 100 merchants became lawbreakers overnight, including David Nuanes, who owns D & V Interiors, a carpet and drapes outlet in a Whittier Boulevard shopping plaza.

“They cited me for having a sign on my front window,” Nuanes said. The sign had the name of his business and the services he provided. “I could understand if it was a junky-looking sign, but the aesthetics were there,” Nuanes said. “It was done in very good taste, very professional. The same type of lettering as on the address.”

Nuanes said he needed the sign because customers on the plaza walkway could not see the sign above his store. He went to the city planning commission and the courts to keep his sign. “The only thing I ever got out of them was: The law is the law,” he said.

He took the sign down.

The amended rules would permit Nuanes’ sign. Window signs would be legal as long as they do not cover more than 25% of the glass. Displays are OK too, provided they do not fill more than half the window. And signs for Christmas promotions would be allowed too, at least for 21 days.

Like the Pico Rivera merchants, Cerritos business people are lobbying for more relaxed sign regulations. Cerritos bars the door to any signs that rotate, move, glare, flash, change, reflect or blink, according to its civil codes.

Also taboo are promotional banners, holiday advertising, signs on poles and windows, and marquee signs with movable letters. Nor can the flag be used to advertise or even to “attract attention.”

Signs “attract or repel the viewing public and affect the safety of vehicular traffic. Their suitability and appropriateness help to set the tone of the neighborhood,” the codes state.

In Whittier, a dentist got into trouble last year for making a sign that included only the word DENTIST and the phone number: (213) MY-TOOTH. He said he left off his name in case he ever wanted to sell the sign, as well as the business.

The city said he could not display the phone number and ordered him to use more than a generic name. The dentist moved elsewhere.

Wall signs in downtown Whittier must be rectangular and have no more than three colors. The goal is to create a village atmosphere.

Compared with Whittier and Cerritos, Artesia is a mini-Las Vegas. Its streets are filled with signs on poles, signs in windows and banners screeching “SALE!” and “SAVE!”

But even Artesia draws the line at putting signs on roofs. And no signs may be taller than 15 feet without permission.

In Long Beach, no sign “shall flash, shimmer or glitter or give the appearance of flashing, shimmering or glittering,” the codes read. But those signs that alternately flash the time and the temperature get a break, as do signs in amusement parks.

But woe unto any Long Beach sign that makes noise, smells or spews “particulate matter.” A sign may not do those things.

Nor may a statue serve as a sign. And do not, under any circumstances, place a sign on “street furniture.” The letters on historical markers must not be more than three inches high.

“It’s so complicated, sometimes you have to be a Philadelphia lawyer to make sense of it,” complained one Long Beach clerk.

Santa Fe Springs officials, realizing this problem, have compiled a 10-page guide. In addition to the rules, the guide provides friendly advice: “Signs are . . . poorly placed when the people who need to see them cannot,” the guide notes.

Many of those who look at the signs are oblivious to all the labor that has gone into getting these rules just right.

Corina Hernandez, a busy mother of two, was among several Pico Rivera shoppers who had never thought about sign laws before being asked about them. The subject hardly titillated her.

“I don’t think it matters,” she said. “I look at signs, but I don’t pay attention.”

Roy Mora did not understand why the city would not allow retailers to stack merchandise more than halfway up a display window. He added that he would support stricter limits on Christmas advertising.

Martha Gabriel disagreed, saying she wanted as much publicity related to God as possible. “Christmas comes once a year,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”