Say your shop's just been named Flower Shop of the Year by a very prestigious and rigorous group of judges. You'd want to tell the world about it — or, at the very least, the world walking by your shop, via a prominent sign.

Sounds pretty much on the up and up, right? Try telling that to Kaye Allen, the owner of Diana Kaye, the U.K. floral boutique that was named Flower Council of Holland's "Shop of the Year." Kaye thought the distinction deserved some attention. The purple signs she draped on the building and in her windows did get that attention — unfortunately it was city officials who ordered her to take them down or pay a hefty daily sum, according to several press reports in British papers. The Evening Gazette reported that she'd been ordered "by Stockton Council to take down the "unauthorised advert" or face a possible fine of £2,500 each day. (That's a $4,924.24 daily wallop on this side of the pond!)

Kaye told the Daily Telegraph:

 "I am just bewildered that they should react like this ...All I am trying to do is run a business. It is a temporary sign." Officials told both papers that the sign crackdown was in response to multiple complaints about several businesses being in violation of display codes.

Before you tsk-tsk the Brits for operating too much of a nanny state, check your local zoning ordinances. "It's always a good reminder to think about sign codes, especially if you are investing any sum of money in a sign," says Shirley Lyons, AAF, whose shop Dandelions Flowers & Gifts in Eugene, Ore., got dinged with complaints — but no fines — when she hung triangle-type mini banners on a string (like those around a car lot) for an outside sale. Complaints are actually the strongest deterrent, she says, because the city doesn't have the staff or money to enforce the rules. But your neighbors do.

--Amanda Long
along@safnow.org

  

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