Last fall, I spotted the first Bernie Sanders sign in an Aberdeen yard west of South Main. Last month, I saw a Donald Trump sign on someone’s yard on 8th Avenue Northeast. I revel at the former; I revolt at the latter.
The City of Aberdeen says both are illegal.
This morning’s paper reviews the city’s sign ordinances, following a spate of apparent violations, including signs advertising a weekend sale staked along 6th Avenue South and others in yards and in front of businesses cheering for young wrestlers in last weekend’s state AAU tournament. In Aberdeen, such exercises of free speech are unacceptable.
Victoria Lusk offers this summary of Aberdeen’s circumscription of the First Amendment:
City ordinance does not allow for temporary staked yard signs — even on personal property, according to Brett Bill, city planning and zoning director. That includes promotional signs for church, school and other events as well as garage sale signs.
The signs may also not be hung or taped to utility poles, trees, fences or other signs or displayed with streamers, ribbons, lights or balloons.
An exception allows for temporary political signs, which may only be place 60 days prior to Election Day. South Dakota’s primary is on June 7, which means today is the first day political signs can legally be in yards. Bill said the city has already had to remove a few political signs.
Political signs cannot exceed 6 square feet. The signs must be removed within seven days after the election.
Temporary real estate signs are permitted as long as the sign pertains to the sale, lease or rental of the property it is placed on. “For sale by owner” signs are included in this exception.
Contractors are allowed to display one sign per building per firm and lending institution on each construction site. However, no more than three signs are allowed on site, and the signs must be removed within 14 days of the project’s completion[Victoria Lusk, “Many Garage Sale, Yard Banners Against City Code,” Aberdeen American News, 2016.04.08].
The real estate, construction, and banking industries get to advertise their commercial activities, but regular folks clearing out the garage and offering their neighbors some bargain treasures do not.
Political candidates—a small group (of which I am a member) often with close connections to those who make the rules—get two months to promote their views in friendly yards, but regular folks can’t surprise their kids with a “Go Team!” or “Happy Birthday!” and a couple balloons in the yard.
Homeowners can advertise their homes for sale, but they can’t use their yards to promote their church’s soup supper.
Mr. Bill says these infringements on the freedom of expression and private property rights protect visibility for drivers (hmmm… neighbors, have you noticed how sparse streetlights are in some neighborhoods?) and prevent distraction and clutter. Will the city be yanking nativity scenes and blinking Christmas lights next holiday season? Will the city order deflated all the spectacular ghosts and goblins and zombies and spiders that struck Halloween hilarity in the hearts of drivers and kids walking home from school at 15th and Jay last fall?
I find these infringements arbitrary, unnecessary, and unconstitutional. I have a hard time identifying the First Amendment difference, the public safety difference, or the neighborhood aesthetic/clutter difference in using one’s yard to display an American flag, a Packers flag, a pitch for Tupperware, an invitation to worship, encouragement to a young wrestler, birthday wishes, thanks to Barack Obama for seven great years of effective executive branch operations, or thanks to Wells Fargo for floating our construction loan.
I’m open to reasonable, content-blind (but what about obscenity?), source-blind limits on signs for the sake of public safety, decency, and maybe even aesthetics. We can ban visual obstructions from the boulevard for traffic safety. Just as I’m open to limiting billboards to preserve the scenery on the prairie and in the Black Hills, I’m open to limiting the amount of signage in yards, perhaps in the form of granting every homeowner a certain square-footage of free-speech space between their front door and sidewalk. We might all agree that a thousand signs on one yard is bonkers, but where is the fair restriction between that and zero?
Restricting free speech on personal property is thin constitutional ice. To justify such restrictions, government must show a compelling public interest and apply restrictions fairly to all parties. Letting real estate agents and bankers advertise in yards but not rummage salers, giving us pols 60 days but wrestling parents zero, and banning decorations that don’t block the view of the road don’t meet those criteria. Aberdeen, lighten up!
Advertisers along our interstate face similar headaches and woes due to big government loving politicians.
If only there was some way to restrict these politicians from restricting free speech… Since they won’t abide by the Constitution? Maybe we should amend It with a new amendment that states “obey the Constitution?”
My facetiousness aside, happy to see you get it.
Hey, at least you’re allowed to throw candy at parades. In Brookings, it’s illegal to throw candy from a float or fire truck.
Sorry to disagree with you Stace, but I find highway/interstate bill boards to be a total turn off.
My goodness, this is America, and this is South Dakota! Where has common sense gone?
I would be tempted to post a sign, no more than six square feet in size, on my own property, up next to the house, where it would not impair a drivers lines of sight, saying “To the Aberdeen City Council, if you don’t like yard signs, please dispose of this one where the sun doesn’t shine”.
And yes, I would pay fine for doing it, but not until I made sure the story went nationwide.
@Curtvarstad No, we are in agreement on that. I don’t care for them, my dad hated them; however, I championed property owners rights to have them. My preferences on the matter are irrelevant. I support private property rights and freedom of speech.
Crossgrain, when A.G. Jackley finally puts Joop away, I’m going to buy his house on Main Street and put up a sign that throws candy at the Gypsy Day parade. Let’s see them sort that one out in ordinance. ;-)
Or I’ll just save up my money to help Bill K. pay his fine. Bill K., be sure you call me when you put up your sign so I can publish your story first! I’ll get you your nationwide coverage.
Stace and I are dangerously close on this point. Stace, are you going to help turn out your Nelson 2014 voters for me in this year’s Senate race?
I would like to see some reasonable limits place on all signs. including having landowners permission to put it up. something like signs can go up 60 prior to an event and taken down 7 days after, regardless of who they are for or what event.
Korporations are people. Money is free speech. Korporations are free to buy pols year ’round with free speech money, but Peon’s free speech rights are restricted in violation of the constitution because Peon doesn’t have free speech monies. I think I get it.
Hmmm seems like Aberdeen is as bad as New Jersey!
[A] New Jersey man who faces a $2,000 fine or 90 days in jail for flying a flag emblazoned with the billionaire candidate’s name over his home.
Local officials said the flag violates an ordinance prohibiting the display of political signs more than 30 days ahead of an election and issued him a summons.
I wonder if they also ticket people for flying New Jersey Devils flags more than 30 days before hockey season.
@CAH Two key issues for me that determine support, 2nd Amendment and stance on abortion.
@MC Please show me within the US Constitution where you would have the authority to limit free-speech in such a fashion. Would you also extend any elective authority to prohibiting vehicle colors you may not like? House colors? Please point to where in the Republican platform you feel that the GOP supports such big government censuring of the 1st Amendment.
You know, Stace, the issues on which we agree likely have a greater impact on daily, practical liberty for both of us and for all South Dakotans than the two issues you cite above.
MC, landowner permission should go without saying. That’s the property rights side of this issue: no one gets to seize your property for his or her uses, not TransCanada, not some rude candidate, no one.
On time limits, I second Stace’s question: what part of the First Amendment puts time limits on when that New Jersey man Cross mentions can express his support for Donald Trump?
Consider my own sidebar: two candidates have purchased ads seven months before they face election. Should they be forbidden from doing so? Extend the comparison: should Facebook ban political conversations until 60 days before the election? Should we not blog on election topics until after Labor Day?
The ordinance ought to be changed. Certainly people are in favor of simple promotional signs for events such as garage sales, graduations, church suppers, etc. Looks like an opportunity for citizens to take action.
It seems to me a First Amendment/property rights argument can be made on nearly any zoning issue. This could get interesting. What prevents me from piling scrap iron on my front lawn? I’m not buying it from passers by, but just saving it for myself and my reasons are none of your business.
There are two Supreme Court cases which encase this issue at least for now and they are the Euclid and Nectow cases. Euclid more or less legitimized our current day municipal ordinances and is a case going back to 1926, which has not really been tested since. The Court said in that decision that the standard was whether a “village’s police power” did or “did not have the character of arbitrary fiat,” and as long as it did not then “it was not unconstitutional.” Euclid also requires the plaintiff to prove a due process claim which denotes discrimination and “has no rational basis.” Perhaps the fact that businesses can keep their signs up all year around while political signs cannot would be an example of the Aberdeen ordinance not meeting the “discrimination” question or standard.
Nectow, however, just two years after Euclid, established the standard that an ordinance must promote “the health, safety, convenience or general welfare of the inhabitants of” a given city in order to be just or constitutional.
Having political signs up of a reasonable size I would think would meet the Nectow standards and I have already addressed the Euclid concern. But at the same time, I do not want my neighbor putting up a sign in their front yard which is the size of two sheets of plywood with a spot light on it day and night throughout the year complaining or promoting some political position – to me that would be analogous to a private taking amongst neighbors which would be enabled by an ordinance or the lack there of one, which I understand is not a legal standing, the thought of private taking that is, but there should be some practical limits on this alleged constitutional signage claim, I would think….
(quotes from Wiki)
Nick, did you ever know Dick Wiedenman in Madison? I’ve mentioned him on my blog a few times. He Madison’s bête noire for years, collecting junk, piling it up, not taking care of his properties. I always had sympathy for him for exactly the reason you state (that, and he was an old friend of my dad’s). I understand there are health and safety issues, but unsightliness and neighboring property values seem to turn into tyranny (or at least petty harassment) over private property rights. I have trouble finding the right balance.
John KC, good citations! An anonymous commenter notes that the Supreme Court may have overturned Aberdeen’s sign ordinances last summer in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona, in which a unanimous court held that content-based regulations of speech do not survive strict scrutiny. If a homeowner can place a “For Sale by Owner” sign in her yard but I cannot place a sign of identical dimensions stating, “Supper at Church Tonight”, the city is violating the First Amendment. If I can put up a sign today saying “Vote for Sanders” but I can’t put up a sign saying “Vote for Heidelberger,” the city is violating the First Amendment.
Sorry,Cory-I’m not picking up Bear’s good citations, you’re not giving good vibrations. Where the heck are the citations?
Sorry, Mike! I get good legal comments confused. I meant John KC, and have corrected my above comment, :-)
Would a hologram of a candidate shown every night on a garage door violate the statute? It isn’t attached to any pole or post and only shows at night.
Mike, I’d think a hologram at night could be more distracting that a regular sign, just as the flashing digital billboards are more distracting to drivers than static billboards.
Cory, I never knew Mr. Wiedenman but I can certainly understand the arguments on both sides of this issue. If someone collected road kill or spilled grain and piled it in the front yard I could certain;y see the public health hazard that would pose. Scrap iron, while possibly unsightly, seems to me to be on the other end of the spectrum it doesn’t rot, and nothing eats it, although if it catches water it might be a breeding ground for mosquitos. Piles of wood in my mind fall someplace in the middle will definitely rot, might be a nesting site for termites or other vermin.
At what point do my rights reduce your rights? I suspect the question will forever remain a gray area.