Agoura Hills : 3 Firms Agree to Replace Pole Signs

In a key victory in Agoura Hills’ battle to enforce a long-standing ordinance against pole signs, three businesses have agreed to replace their signs with less conspicuous monument signs.

The agreement with International House of Pancakes, Agoura Feed and Agoura-Las Virgenes Tax Service was reached after months of negotiations, Mike Kamino, senior planner for the city, said Monday. In return for their cooperation, he said, the businesses will be paid as much as $500 toward the cost of removing the old signs and installing new ones.

This follows another victory for the city last year in which the operators of a Shell service station and a lumber yard agreed to take down their pole signs.

The city outlawed pole signs as eyesores in 1985, and gave businesses until March 1992 to take then down. But none of the businesses complied. In 1994, 12 businesses near the Ventura Freeway sued the city in an effort to keep their signs, which they said they need to attract business from the freeway.

In July 1995, a Superior Court judge ruled that the city cannot legally enforce the ban. The city has appealed. International House of Pancakes, Agoura Feed and Agoura-Las Virgenes Tax Service are not involved in the lawsuit.

Jim Dietrich, who operates Agoura Feed, said his business, on Agoura Road, doesn’t really need a highly conspicuous sign anyway, because the feed store has been around for 15 years and most of his customers know it’s there.

Kamino said that the city is close to reaching a similar agreement with the owners of two storage facilities near the freeway, and is in negotiations with Pizza Hut. None of those three businesses is involved in the suit against the city.