Title: In re Deyo

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

In re Deyo  (94-422); 164 Vt 613; 670 A.2d 793

[Filed 26-Oct-1995]


                               ENTRY ORDER

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 94-422

                            SEPTEMBER TERM, 1995


In re Gerald B. Deyo                 }     APPEALED FROM:
                                     }
                                     }
                                     }     Bennington Superior Court
                                     }
                                     }
                                     }     DOCKET NO. S0287-90BcCa


       In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       Appellant Town of Manchester appeals the Bennington Superior Court's
  ruling that its ordinance banning on-premise signs advertising the sale or
  lease of real estate violates the First Amendment to the United States
  Constitution.  We affirm.

       Appellee Gerald Deyo owns real property in the Town of Manchester and
  uses this property for business purposes.  He operates a mobile home park
  and leases commercial space for office or retail purposes.  Appellant has a
  comprehensive sign ordinance, which it adopted in February 1986 pursuant to
  24 V.S.A., Chapter 117, after public hearings.  The purposes of the sign
  ordinance are:

         to help preserve and improve the existing attractive aspects of the
         Manchester environment, to promote the welfare, convenience and
         safety of its inhabitants and visitors, to conserve the value of
         property, and to encourage a style and scale of outdoor advertising
         that is compatible with a tourist-oriented economy and the more
         attractive features of the Manchester townscape.

  To achieve these purposes, the ordinance limits the number, type, and
  location of signs.  All off-premise signs are prohibited, and only one
  freestanding, on-premise sign is permitted on each commercial  property. 
  The ordinance contains exemptions for certain signs, such as sale, auction,
  special event, directional, window, and political signs.  It also expressly
  prohibits certain types of signs, such as internally illuminated,
  fluorescent, construction, and real estate signs.  Appellee challenged only
  the section of the ordinance that prohibits signs "advertis[ing] the sale
  or lease of real estate and . . . exhibited on such real estate."

       After receiving a permit from appellant, appellee erected a sign in
  front of the office building on his property.  His sign is one of only a
  "handful" of signs in the Town which use removable letters.  In early July
  1990, appellee's commercial tenant vacated its commercial space.  Shortly
  thereafter, appellee changed the lettering on his sign to advertise the
  vacant space as available for lease.  His sign said "office retail space"
  and included his telephone number.

       On July 12, 1990, appellant's zoning administrator sent a notice of
  violation to appellee stating that the sign violated the section of the
  ordinance which prohibited on-premise signs advertising the sale or lease
  of real estate.  Appellee requested and received a stay of enforcement
  while he appealed his violation to the Town of Manchester Zoning Board of
  Adjustment.  The Board upheld the zoning administrator's decision. 
  Appellee further appealed

  

  the Board's decision to the Bennington Superior Court, claiming that
  the Town's sign ordinance violated the First Amendment to the United States
  Constitution.  After a bench trial, the superior court concluded that
  appellant's sign ordinance was unconstitutional.

       Appellant contends that the superior court misapplied the commercial
  speech test.  The court applied the four prong test for commercial speech
  first enunciated by the United States Supreme Court in Central Hudson Gas &
  Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of N.Y.,