Grocery store owner critical of Bangor sign ordinance

BANGOR – The owner of a grocery store on Broadway got the opportunity Tuesday to sound off about the city’s sign ordinance.

While city councilors empathized with Susie Savers’ owner Allan Dill, they said there was little else the city could do to satisfy him.

Tuesday’s review of the sign ordinance by the council’s infrastructure and development support committee was prompted by complaints from Dill. His business is an independent discount grocery store at 1205 Broadway in the Judson Heights Center.

Dill alleged, among other things, that business at his store is only 30 percent of what it used to be before the city required him to remove a sign on a parking lot cart-storage rack. He also claimed that the city has been enforcing its sign regulations selectively.

However, city documents related to the matter said that the city’s code enforcement staff visited Dill’s store after receiving a complaint this spring about an illegal freestanding sign, which did not meet the minimum 20-foot setback. While there, a city inspector determined that a sign atop the rack violated city code and needed to be removed.

Since then, Dill has met with several city officials to discuss the issue, including City Manager Edward Barrett, Code Enforcement Officer Dan Wellington, City Solicitor Norman Heitmann, Assistant City Solicitor John Hamer, Business and Economic Development Director Jonathan Daniels, and the code enforcement office’s Development Coordinator Jeremy Martin.

Dill also lodged complaints about signs at Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart, Broadway Wholesale Furniture and Bed, Bath and Beyond. Code enforcement personnel conducted inspections at those businesses and issued notices to Sam’s and the furniture store, according to Martin’s June 24 memo to the committee. The notices were withdrawn after the two retailers addressed the city’s sign concerns.

Staff on hand for the meeting said there were few options for Dill. If he thought that the sign ordinance was being improperly enforced, the board of appeals was the route to take.

If Dill thought policy was the problem, he should work with city councilors. In response to Dill’s concerns about enforcement, Wellington said that when it comes to the sign ordinance, his office typically responds to complaints and referrals but also handles violations spotted by staff out in the city on business. There is no full-time person devoted specifically to the sign ordinance.

“We probably handle five or six sign issues a week, on average,” he said.

The store, which is located on a corner, now is in compliance with the city’s sign ordinance.

It now has two signs, one of them 96 square feet and the other 80 square feet. Susie Savers has access to a freestanding, changeable message board that is rotated among other shopping center tenants and Dill has been using it since April.

In addition, a company truck with the store’s logo often is parked there, which helps call attention to the store and is allowed under the sign ordinance.

Councilor Frank Farrington, committee chairman, said the van helped him find the store. “That’s the eye catcher,” he said.

Martin said that the ordinance allows for another 24 square feet of sign space.

After Tuesday’s meeting, Dill said that he remained dissatisfied with the city’s response.

“I still see [selective enforcement] going on. It’s not going to change.”