COURT HOUSE – Dr. Terri Marks is the owner of South Paw Animal Hospital on Route 9 in Court House. She used the public comment period of Middle Township Committee’s June 5 meeting to ask the governing body for changes to the ordinance that forbids the use of banners and flags as onsite advertising for businesses.
Marx said she had been using a banner to tell people her hospital was open for 22 years. Suddenly, she received a notice of violation and threat of fine if she did not remove the banner.
She pushed the committee to reconsider recent changes to the ordinance because a tasteful banner flown in a way that is not a threat to public safety should not be banned outright.
Marx noted that the ordinance “prohibits pinwheels, strings of flags, and other eye-catching displays.” She said she understood that positioned in the wrong way, banners could block lines of sight and be a safety hazard. “I get it,” she said repeatedly, but she pressed the committee to find a compromise that met the township’s needs and those of the business owners.
Marx also claimed that enforcement of the ordinance was spotty.
“I can drive you around town and point to numerous businesses that are making use of banners without receiving notices of violation,” she said.
She claimed she possessed a list with 37 businesses that had been issued notices of violation out of hundreds in the township.
The owner of the Mister Softee, also on Route 9 in Court House, echoed Marx’s concern. He said he had to take his flags down, adding, “We’re busy, but not as busy as when I had the flags.”
Defense of the flags and banners even went so far as recourse to the First Amendment where a banner that is a LGBTQ pride flag would be allowed as protected free speech.
Township engineer Vince Orlando said overuse of flags and banners is what led to the ordinance.
“Someone would put one out, then this guy would put up four, the next guy would put up six,” he said.
Township officials said they had received correspondence expressing the same concern.
The urgency the business owners were raising stemmed from a need to do something in time to take advantage of the busy period that comes with the summer season.
A debate and possible amendment to the ordinance would take all summer, Business Administrator Kimberly Osmundsen said.
Donohue agreed that he would look at the ordinance to figure out “how we can be reasonable in the short time.”
Contact the author, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
