Lights out for Lamar display

Digital billboard on Nicholasville Road will go dark


The bright lights on a digital billboard along Nicholasville Road will go dark in the next 30 days.
Lamar Advertising says it will pursue a change in the city zoning ordinance that currently prohibits a sign that blinks or flashes. In the meantime, it will turn off the sign.
At the Board of Adjustment meeting last Friday, Lamar was scheduled to ask permission to operate the sign as a non-conforming use. However, at the last minute, company attorney Rena Wiseman requested an indefinite postponement to give the company time to request a text amendment to the current ordinance.
The high-definition sign went up in late April. The city sent a letter to Lamar on May 2, telling the company to remove the billboard that flips to a new ad every eight seconds.
The digital display is in a zone that prohibits this type of sign.
“I’ve always been told the billboards are a distraction, and they feel like it’s a safety issue for the motoring public,” Dewey Crowe, director of the city’s Division of Building Inspection, said.
Signs that flash and blink were outlawed when the city’s sign ordinance was rewritten in 1983, he said.
Brian Ridgway , vice president and general manager for Lamar, said his company will turn the sign off within 30 days.
Approximately 10 advertisers have messages on the Nicholasville Road sign, he said. “We are in the process of working with our advertisers . . . to make new arrangements,” he said. Lamar, a national company, has over 300 other digital displays around the country.
A text amendment means changing the law “to make what they have done legal,” said Chris King, director of the Division of Planning. It’s a lengthy process that starts with a recommendation from the professional planning staff. Any proposed change is reviewed by a subcommittee and goes to the planning commission for a public hearing. The commission makes a recommendation to the Urban County Council.
If approved by council, the text amendment becomes part of the ordinance and can be used “by any other similar business that has the same situation,” Crowe said.
King, an author of the sign ordinance, said digital billboards were prohibited because they were seen as an “assault on the senses, aesthetically, and as a safety issue.” After seeing the blinking billboards around the country, King said those remain legitimate concerns.

Source: Lexington Herald Leader, By Beverly Fortune