CALABASAS : Planners to Weigh Fate of 75-Foot Sign

The Calabasas Planning Commission on Thursday will consider a restaurant owner’s request to be allowed to keep his freeway sign for 15 years, instead of taking it down within 90 days, as the commission has ordered.

Scott Soller, owner of Red Robin Restaurant on Calabasas Road, argues that under the state’s business and professions code, he has 15 years to remove the 75-foot-tall sign installed about 22 years ago. The meeting will be at City Hall at 7:30 p.m.

City officials maintain that the restaurant sign, and a 100-foot Mobil service station sign next door, have been in violation of a Los Angeles County ordinance adopted in 1977, which sets a 42-foot height limit on such signs. The city has invited both business owners to apply to the city for permission to use 42-foot signs.

The Mobil station owner, John Barkhordar has indicated that he will appeal the Planning Commission’s decision to the City Council, city officials said Friday.

Barkhordar and Soller say they need the signs to attract business from the freeway and that business would drop off if the signs came down. Barkhordar said he put up a temporary, 42-foot sign to see if it would be visible from the freeway, but it was not.

City officials say the sign ordinance is designed to protect the scenic beauty of the city, not to harass business owners. The issue has ignited a controversy in Agoura Hills, where freeway signs were outlawed in 1985.

The businesses were supposed to have removed their signs by March, 1992, but many have refused and 12 have sued the city. A hearing has been set for Feb. 15 in Van Nuys Superior Court.