Apparently Nobody Cares If We Trash Up Our Streets With Those A-Frame Signs. By Dave Devine DESPITE THE HIGH summer temperatures and lack of rain, Tucson is seeing a bumper yield of at least one crop this summer--the so-called A-frame signs favored by some small businesses. They seem to be sprouting all over town. It wasn't suppose to be this way. Until 1992, A-frame signs near the curb were simply illegal. That doesn't mean they didn't exist, though. In a controversial 1991 court case, a business owner who'd been fined for having an A-frame sign, complained to The Arizona Daily Star, "This law, not only is it bad, but it's not being enforced fairly." A few months after that incident, the Tucson City Council considered revising the law to allow A-frames. They delayed a decision on this and other sign code issues after a public hearing on the topic. One of the speakers at that hearing was George Miller, then a candidate for mayor. He urged the council to keep the sign code as it was. But less than one year later, after he'd been elected, Miller was part of a 5-2 council majority that voted to allow A-frames. While size, location and time restrictions were written into the ordinance, the council gave no serious consideration to the issue of enforcement of the new law, which requires owners to obtain permits before placing most of these signs. Have the revised regulations been successful in allowing permitted A-frames while prohibiting others? Not if a short stretch of north Campbell Avenue is any example. Along two miles of the street, we recently found 35 A-frames and other curbside signs. One was proclaiming an apartment for lease, a category that's exempt from the regulations. One other sign did have a recently issued permit. Of the remaining 33 signs, only nine showed any evidence of permits, which may or may not have been current. It appears, however, that none of the other signs had the required permit. Thus, 24 of the signs, more than two-thirds of them, were apparently illegal. The existence of all of these illegal signs doesn't mean that enforcement hasn't been tried. Last year the city's Development Services Center staff inspected the Campbell Avenue area and cited several businesses for illegal A-frames. This resulted in a few signs being removed and some businesses obtaining permits. But since then more A-frames have appeared, and in one case where a sign was removed, it was replaced after a few months with another illegal sign. City staffers have not been able to return to the area since last year. Susan Harbin, assistant director of the Development Services Department, admits 100 percent enforcement of the A-frame regulations is impossible. Her department's goal, she says, is to cover 50 miles of major streets in the city each month. But that probably means only once-a-year inspection for any one stretch of major roadway. So business owners on Campbell Avenue and all of the other major streets in town can be fairly certain enforcement of A-frame regulations won't be much of a threat. Harbin claims enforcement has increased substantially in the last few months, but you can't prove that by pointing to Campbell Avenue, or many other major streets in town. What difference can a thousand or so illegal A-frames make? To some it's sort of like asking whether another loss by the Detroit Tigers really matters. But the law is being violated, and the City Council is doing very little about it. And the signs junk up the view along Tucson streets. In January council members considered revising the sign code to once again prohibit A-frames. However, in their infinite wisdom they delayed any decision for further study. The issue is expected to return to them in September. The business owner who was fined in 1991 for his A-frame at the time asked for uniform enforcement of the law. Obviously, so far the city hasn't been able to provide that, or anything even approaching it. Is banning A-frames altogether the answer to equal enforcement? Or is hiring more staff to enforce whatever law is on the books the solution? Or should we just give up and allow all the signs the roadways will bear? Whatever the city council's eventual decision, don't expect A-frames to disappear. The high visibility they provide a business, combined with the city's lack of enforcement, makes them just too attractive to many business owners. And apparently nobody cares if they trash up the neighborhood.

		© 1995-97 Tucson Weekly . Info Booth