Politics & Government

More Regulation Passes for Human Signs

Florissant City Council adds new restrictions to businesses.

Although several residents attended last week’s Florissant City Council for bigger items on the agenda, such as or , another item seemed to have caused a great deal of controversy amongst council members and business owners--human signs.

Last week, the council passed an ordinance that would regulate human signs, those employees who carry signs outside of a business. The ordinance requires businesses to pay a $50 annual permit fee for the signs as well as allow no more than six times out of the year for the signs to be on display outside of the business. It also regulates the size of the sign and the distance from the business that the human sign must be.

Ward 1 City Councilman Tim Lee, who proposed the bill, said he and Mayor Robert Lowery began discussing the possibility of the ordinance more than six months ago.

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“We looked at it closely with what other cities were doing,” he said. “We didn’t want to ban the signs, we just wanted to regulate them.”

During the council meeting, Ward 3 City Councilman said that he had previously asked Chief William Karabas of the if human signs posed a safety concern, and he said they hadn't in the past.

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During the council’s public session of the ordinance, attorney Bobby Bailey of Sims & Bailey pleaded with council members to reconsider and research the bill more before passing it. However, his plea went unheeded as the council passed the bill 8-1.

Bailey said eventually the ordinance could be knocked because of its unconstitutionality as it regulates human signs so strenuously, but it would be up to his client, Nelson Norris, to bring those charges.

Norris owns the Liberty Tax Service at 8217 N. Lindbergh in Florissant. For the past 10 years, Norris said that he’s hired wavers to stand outside of his business with signs and invite people into his business. He said students in high school to those with disabilities have worked for him as wavers previously, and the new ordinance changes those abilities.

“If I can only use them for two consecutive days, I have to cut back,” Norris said. “This puts a dent in some of these people’s earnings.”

Norris said the human signs, which are a huge part of the marketing for Liberty Tax, would have to be cut as he could only compensate for two days worth of work. Normally, some of his wavers worked for eight hours each weekday.

Councilman Lee said that no one spoke to him before or since the ordinance passed on Jan. 24, so he knows of no concerns of business owners.

Norris said he found out about the bill days before the second reading and only had four or five days to work with his attorney on a presentation to the council.

“Those guys have been with me a long time, and they’re like family,” Norris said. “How do you let family go?”

Norris said with the new ordinance in effect, he thinks he’ll move his business out of the Florissant area.


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