No more human signs to be allowed

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No more human signs to be allowed

County News

Friday, 07 January 2011 13:28

TaxPrepWavers07_012010

News-Gazette Photo/Andrew Sullivan
Jon Reber last year worked for a time as a human sign for Liberty Tax Service at 1311 U.S. Highway 192 in Kissimmee. The owner of the tax preparation company at the time organized a demonstration against the city over the human sign issue.

By Brian McBride
Associate Editor
Uncle Sam or Lady Liberty wielding signs for businesses are no longer welcome in the city of Kissimmee.
After temporarily allowing businesses to use employees as human signs in August 2010, the Kissimmee City Commission voted to ban the practice at its meeting Tuesday. The commission, however, agreed to a six-month extension for businesses to continue displaying cold air balloons, banners, bunting and window signs before it comes before the dais again for review.

To assist commercial businesses by allowing additional advertising opportunities in the economic downturn, the commission has continually re-adopted an ordinance since 2008 to extend the length of time allowed in the land development code for the display of the temporary signage. It was only last year that the city added human signs after some business owners said they would have to lay off people if they weren’t able to utilize employees as advertising.
But that temporary ordinance ended Dec. 31.
Looking at the permits pulled by businesses for human signs, city records showed only five were recorded. And because human signs were allowed anywhere except for downtown Kissimmee, Gemskie said the city shouldn’t be showing “preferential treatment” to those few businesses.
“I don’t think that we should start anything just to satisfy a couple of businesses,” Gemskie said. “I just don’t see a need for human signs.”
Mayor Jim Swan agreed.
“I don’t know if the demand for that specialty item is there,” he said.
The commission voted 4-1 to ban human signs, with Commissioner Art Otero being the sole opposing vote.
Businesses caught using human signs will first get a warning by the city. If it’s a repeated offense, businesses could get a citation to appear before code enforcement, where they could be fined as much as $250.
Other city business
In other business, the commission approved staff recommendations to lower the speed limit from 30 to 25 mph on all residential streets. Over the past few years, the city’s traffic-calming committee received numerous requests for speed studies, police enforcement of the speed limit or to install speed tables on neighborhood streets, city officials said. A review of the existing land development code and actual speed postings throughout the city was conducted by staff and it was determined that further evaluation was warranted. It will have to pass two public hearings before the reduction can happen.
Speed limits on city collector and arterial streets also were studied and recommendations will be brought before the commission at a later date, city officials said.