AGOURA HILLS : City Denies Requests for Freeway Signs

The Agoura Hills City Council has denied requests from 13 business owners who want to keep their pole-top advertising signs in place despite a ban on them supported by a majority of voters. The denials marked the first time the council has taken action in support of the ban since it was scheduled to go into effect two years ago.

“This is the last step the city had to take,” said Agoura Hills Director of Planning David Anderson. “Now the ball is more or less in (the business owners’) court.”

Within several weeks, Anderson said, the city will send notices of the City Council’s Jan. 26 decision upholding a 9-year-old law requiring the removal of about 30 signs on the basis that the towering, lollipop-style advertisements near the Ventura Freeway are an eyesore.

The 13 sign owners who asked for exemptions contended that the ban would hurt their businesses in a way unique from the effect on other merchants.

Merchants will have 90 days to remove the signs, although some of the 13 who objected have threatened lawsuits to block enforcement of the ban.

“The majority of the (business owners) feel we’re going to wait for the city to take down the signs and then file lawsuits on our own,” said Terry Herrick, owner of a Jack-in-The-Box restaurant in Agoura Hills.

“We would lose a substantial amount of business by removing our signs.”

Other owners have said they will remove their signs, said Councilwoman Fran Pavley.

The pole sign ban, approved in 1985, sparked the costliest and, perhaps, ugliest political battle in the city’s 12-year history.

As the seven-year grace period for removing the signs approached in 1992, a group of business owners hired a political consultant and lobbied against the ban, eventually raising about $100,000, mostly from parent companies.

Enforcement of the ban was postponed while city officials and business owners worked toward a compromise. But late last year, the talks degenerated into squabbles and eventually ended.

On Nov. 2, voters in Agoura Hills rejected by a 3-1 margin two measures that would have allowed pole signs to remain in place at their current height or lower.

“That made our job easy,” Pavley said.

“That vote showed we did the right thing by our constituents.”