Sometimes you have to pursue legal remedies to protect your rights when faced with a regulator which doesn’t play by the rules.  Girard, Ohio adopted an ordinance 12 years ago banning new billboards on certain parts of the city.  In other parts of the city billboards are allowed.    A problem cropped up when the town’s zoning official refused to even give Huntington Billboards a sign application.  Billboard Insider talked with Huntington Billboards CEO Justin Powell about the situation.

What caused the lawsuit?

This was a very unfortunate incident. We had signed several legal locations within this town and when we went to apply for the permits the zoning official refused to even give us a sign zoning application. We’ve created our own “generic” application and went ahead and sent that to them anyway. They refused to accept it as well. Our attorney contacted their attorney and said they had no choice but to accept the applications. Their mayor refused to let it happen, so we filed suit.

What happened then…

A month later they settled and let us have the legal locations. As you all know there’s the enormous legal hurdles in getting a new sign then there’s all the “bureaucratic” hurdles that rogue city/township officials throw up that add thousands of dollars of cost to the installation of new signs. It’s really getting out of control…

Huntington Outdoor was represented by attorney Michael Galasso of Robbins, Kelly, Patterson, Tucker.  For more information on the lawsuit read Lawsuit Dismissed After Parties Reach Agreement in Girard Billboard Case.

To receive a free morning newsletter with each day’s Billboard insider articles email info@billboardinsider.com with the word “Subscribe” in the title.  Our newsletter is free and we don’t sell our subscriber list.