Giant, Guitar-Shaped Sign Is OKd for Hard Rock Cafe : Promotion: Newport Beach planners narrowly approve the design despite the fact that it violates Fashion Island regulations.

NEWPORT BEACH — It wasn’t a huge hit, but the Hard Rock Cafe’s request for a 50-foot-tall, guitar-shaped sign at its proposed Fashion Island location was approved by the Newport Beach Planning Commission on Thursday night.

Although three of the commissioners opposed the size of the flashing sign, the other four voted to allow it, with the proviso that they would review the situation 90 days after the sign goes up.

“Some energy in the city might be quite wonderful,” Commissioner Norma Glover said.

The international restaurant chain, which plans to open one of its eateries in the former Amen Wardy showroom building, proposed a blinking sign consisting of a 40-foot-tall, 14-foot-wide guitar elevated 10 feet above a water fountain shaped like a musical note.

Similar “guitar monuments” at the Las Vegas and Chicago restaurants “have received rave reviews from both citizens and visitors,” wrote James P. Rees, vice president of operations, in a letter to the city.

Those signs and other “signature sculptures” like the fish-tailed Cadillac on the roof of the Los Angeles location and the “Save the Planet” Thunderbird perched on top of the Houston restaurant have helped the 20-year-old company create a “unique image” that is key to the restaurant chain’s popularity, according to Rees.

“We are certain that (the proposed Newport Beach sign) will become an icon of the city and will help to identify our newest Hard Rock Cafe as a tasteful yet vibrant tribute to pop culture and rock ‘n’ roll,” Rees wrote.

But the city’s Fashion Island development regulations limit free-standing signs to 50 square feet in size and five feet in height and furthermore prohibit flashing, blinking or any other animation visible from Newport Center Drive.

Another Fashion Island restaurant’s request for a smaller animated sign shaped like a cup and saucer was denied by the city modifications committee last year, even though the sign would have been only partially visible from Newport Center Drive, according to a planning staff report.

The staff report also noted that Hard Rock Cafe restaurants in Maui, Honolulu, New Orleans and San Francisco don’t have “monolithic monuments.”