The process of getting a sign

[Kgirl]

*

Looking for a Sign

By BRUCE BUSCHEL

August 26, 2010, 7:00 am

http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/looking-for-a-sign/

It’s sign time. A restaurant needs a sign. The one I have in mind will have black lower-case letters painted on a piece of Philippine mahogany with a little light above it. It will stand in front of the building, in the garden, two-sided so you can see it when traveling north or south. Maybe it should be a black sign with white letters. We’ll see. It will say Southfork Kitchen. That’s the name of the restaurant.

But first, a permit is needed. Southampton is very touchy about its signs — shape, location, luminosity and content. When you attend enough planning board meetings, you get to hear the debates about sundry signage. One of my favorites involved a holistic veterinarian who wanted to use a bird on his sign. Members of the board wondered aloud if the proposed bird was an egret or a heron. That it looked like a stork, said one board member, might confuse the citizenry into thinking the doctor was an obstetrician, not a veterinarian. But a heron is a stork, argued a more ornithologically minded board member.

The real question was whether the bird was a symbol or a product. In Southampton, you cannot display a product. The local Mercedes dealer, for example, could not put a car on his sign but used the famous Mercedes hood ornament (or hood mascot). It was a symbol of the product, not the product itself. The vet didn’t sell birds, argued a town lawyer, he only fixes birds. Could an auto repair shop display an automobile, it was asked. Of course not, it was answered. With that in mind, someone suggested, the vet ought to display a bird with a broken wing.

The debate lasted quite a while, concluding with the collective notion that if the bird were white, half the size of the current rendering, carved in bas-relief on a nice piece of wood, and illuminated in accordance with the Dark Sky Initiative*, then the sign would fly.

Listening to that debate in Town Hall forced me to reconsider the name I had chosen for my place: Fish. No doubt that one syllable word would cause Planning Board consternation, it being a product, a menu item, a symbol (for baptism), and a name all at the same time. I think I dropped the idea right then and there. More than a year ago.

One recent day, the planning board representative instructed me to confer with the building inspector-sign administrator for signage guidance. He was a nice man, loquacious and full of information. We went over the forms. He peered into his computer screen and asked about the previous occupant of my restaurant’s location, the Wild Rose, a music bar that, in its last few years, rented the space to Boutique, a vodka bar for models and trust-funders.

“Wild Rose never demolished its sign,” said the administrator.

“It’s long gone,” I said. “Promise.”

“Says here that it still exists.”

“It hasn’t been there for five years,” I said.

“The Wild Rose never applied for a permit to demolish the sign, so the sign is still there.”

“There was a Boutique sign for two years after the Wild Rose sign was removed and that too was demolished. I know. I demolished everything I could with my demolition permit.”

“Not according to the records,” he said, looking at his computer screen.

“Do we deal in reality or in bureaucratic hyperspace?” I asked.

Fully grasping the surreal nature of the contretemps, he smiled and said, “Reality is this screen. You have to apply for a sign demolition permit before you can apply for a new sign permit. There’s no fee.”

No fee? Imagine: a permit to remove something that is not there has no charge. If Kafka had a permit to roll over in his grave, he would lie still out of spite. You can’t fight City Hall. You simply depart with a fistful of applications and a bellyful of bile.

This is how I understood my mission from the official literature: In order to put my sign on my property, I needed a construction permit with fastening details that comply with Section 1609 of the building code (in a hurricane area) and a New York State workers’ compensation insurance certificate from the contractor and two site plans with the precise location of the sign and drawings that detail the font, the spaces between the letters, the colors (including the Pantone reference numbers), and the dimensions of said sign. “If illuminated,” reads the literature, “provide lighting details, including wattage, fixture type and color, spacing, shielding color and location of wiring and equipment, and all information to show compliance with S.330-207 of the Town Code. (Two sets.)”

The literature also says this: “Enclose fee — $5 per square foot. $50 minimum. Double fees if sign exists illegally.” Huh? Can I skip all the legalities and pay $100? It can’t mean that, can it? It can’t be that simple, can it?

After the planning board approves the proposal, which is always a dicey proposition, I am to take the plans to the architectural review board, which meets the first and third Tuesday of each month. Says the review board’s handout: “Since applications may take several weeks to process, the A.R.B. recommends that application be submitted with all necessary information a month before the sign is needed. The board reserves the right to request additional information not required by this application. …”

Once the planning board and the review board consent, the building inspector will issue a sign permit. Then the actual physical labor commences. After the final electrical inspection has passed, the building inspector will issue a certificate of compliance.

For one sign with two words, I will need a designer, an electrician, an engineer, a painter, a sign company, a construction team, wood posts, wood panels, paint, bolts, lights, a bag of cement, and a lawyer to translate the following:

“No freestanding sign…shall be permitted in the Town of Southampton unless the entire building to which it relates is set back from its front line a distance of 40 feet or more. All such permitted signs shall be subject to the setback requirements in Subsection B(2) below and, with respect to dual-pole freestanding signs only, the height and area restriction of the zoning districts in which they are located as set forth in § 330-206, except for any embellishments up to a maximum of 6 inches on any side, as illustrated below. … Each freestanding sign permitted hereunder shall be set back at least 20 feet from all property lines unless the average front yard setback of existing buildings located within 200 feet on either side of such sign is less than 10 feet, in which case the setback of such sign may be equal to the average setback of such adjacent buildings, provided that, in no event, shall any such sign be allowed within corner clearances.”

I would love to hang out and discuss the sign some more, but there are measurements to take and applications to notarize and many people to call. A more clever person might have anticipated all this jazz, and started months ago, but, alas, I am a tone-deaf novice trying to make his way through a sophisticated cacophony of rules.

Oh, look at this. While perusing the sign regulations, one notation jumps off the page and sings to me that someone in city hall has a deft, daft sense of irony. It’s Article D in Amendment 1-10-2006 by L.L. No. 1-2006:

“In deciding how to best convey sign messages, the cardinal rule is to keep it simple for rapid comprehension by the public.”

*The Dark Sky Initiative restricts all outside lights to 60 watts or less, with a downward angle of no more than 45 degrees. It prohibits neon, strobe, laser and a host of other lights. Christmas lights and flag displays are exempted. Violations result in fines of up to $250 for residential properties on the first offense and up to $500 for nonresidential properties.

[imanut]

That's actually funny - and sad at the same time, yet so very true. Same logic as UL, or inspectors, etc.

gn

[Kingpin Creative]

I don't feel so bad for the guy... it's what I have to do every day, on almost every job.

It's a restaurant, you have to go through many inspections prior to opening, and you get inspected from time to time.

It cost hundreds of thousands to millions to open a restaurant.

They hired an architect to design the sign...

Edited August 27, 2010 by Kingpin Creative

[garettc]

The reason I got out of retail signage. I promised myself as I left the City of San Diego permit office that if I ever had to return there would be an Uzi in the briefcase.

Thankfully I have not returned, and my wife and children are unknowingly thankful. I was much younger then!

BUT, if I could do it again, I would take a page from Atlas Shrugged.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926478/posts

"I do not recognize your right to judge me." "but you must!" "I don't."

Translation: "I do not recognize your right to impose your esthetic whims on me." in other words, tastes are individual values and inherently non-moral. It should be a decision arrived at between the property owner and the tenant.

To impose your will by force on private parties is a practice that has a name.

Anyone care to guess?

Garett

[imanut]

The reason I got out of retail signage. I promised myself as I left the City of San Diego permit office that if I ever had to return there would be an Uzi in the briefcase.

Thankfully I have not returned, and my wife and children are unknowingly thankful. I was much younger then!

BUT, if I could do it again, I would take a page from Atlas Shrugged.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926478/posts

"I do not recognize your right to judge me." "but you must!" "I don't."

Translation: "I do not recognize your right to impose your esthetic whims on me." in other words, tastes are individual values and inherently non-moral. It should be a decision arrived at between the property owner and the tenant.

To impose your will by force on private parties is a practice that has a name.

Anyone care to guess?

Garett

Obamaism ?

[garettc]

When the government gives you property rights but can tell you what you MUST do with it under penalty, that is the definition of...

Fascism.

Garett