Evening star., 1931-06-27
Jas SIGN LICENSES
ARE CHALLENGED
Sign Committee Requires
Companies to Furnish
Permit Proof.
(Continued FROM First Page.)


blanket authorizations for the erec-
ton of signs for which the District
files have no record. The companies
claim thev have some of these blanket
authorizations and eventually, ! think,
it will be found that many Of the loca-
tions will be retained on the list. The
committee insists, however, that the
companies show authorizations and
records of the District. In the case
of those sites for which no records
can be produced, they will be ordered
abandoned This is final and the COM
panies have volunteered to do so and
2Sey will do it"
One of the chief reasons the billboard
companies are supporting the new Dis
trict sign law is to get rid Of the boot
Logging" of signs by others, over which
District officials had no control. 1t was
largely to control this situation, Maj.
Dawson said, that the Commissioners
asked for the enactment Of wider pow
ers to order the removal of hundreds
of small "tack and hammer" signs and
other unauthorized larger signs in the
downtown sections Of the city.
Many Are Large Type.
Ccntending that careful examination
of records would reveal the presence of
many unauthorized signs Of the larger
type. representatives of the civic cam
paign avainst the billboards considered
the list being compiled by the Sign Com
nnittee as bearir% most Importantly on
the proposed re@0lations.
The reason Undoubtedly is due to the
various conflicting ways in which per
nnitS were issued in the days before the
World War Sometimes they were issued
by the Commissioners, at other times by
the police or building inspectors of1ce.
Due to the general non-enforcement OF
existing regulations then. the search for
bona-fide records was long and tedious.
The Police Department first made a
survey of all sign locations. Against
their figures were checked the sites fur
nished by the billboard companies and
against these two sets the existing rec
ords on file were checked. The result
was as announced.
To Ask Abandonment.
At the meeting on July Is, when the
companies will produce whatever rec
ords they can for the 543 signs in dis
pute, Maj. Davidson said the commit
tee would urge the companies voluntar-
lily to abandon billboard sites in resi-
dental districts or facing public parks
or public buildings coming within the
scope of the Shipstead act. In lieu of
voluntary vacation, it was proposed
that the companies would be given
sites in business or industrial sections
and the opportunity to recondition cer-
tain of their boards which are not in
a so per cent state of disrepair. In
this way Maj. Davidson believes, many
Objectionable billboard sites for which
permits have been issued in the past,
can be abolished for the public good
OF the SAB signs, which are yet to
be agreed upon, a great many are of
the usual billboard size. Others are 10
by 10 feet, 10 by Is feet or 10 by 20
feet, all of them, however, in excess
Of the new maximum limited proposed
for ordinary signs.
Most in Second Precinct.
A majority of these signs are in the
most populated precincts, the second
precinct leading with 90. There are
only 10 listed in the first precinct, of
which eight are of the large type. OF
the 90 in the second precinct, 81 are
100 square feet or more in area.
The fourth precinct, with So Of the
questionable signs, ranks second in
number on the list. OF these 35 are
large ones. The fifth precinct follows
with 65, Of which only 18 are of the
large type. Next come the ninth pre-
ClIlEI WIFI %, llCluQulB % large OIlcS,
the eighth precinct with 50 signs on the
list, "a being large ones; the sixth pre-
cinct with At, including 81 large ones,
and the third precinct with 46, of which
19 are of the larger type.
The so-called unauthorized" signs
IN other precincts are as follows:
Twenty-Five in the tenth. % in the
eleventh; IL in the twelfth; in the
thirteenth and l small sign in the four
teenth.
AS in the case Of these signs for
which the records are not available to
District officials, the second precinct
leads all in the total of all billboards,
wall and fence signs. The number is
I'll. The fourth precinct is second,
with l54, and others included in the 200
class are the fifth, sixth, eighth and
ninth precincts.
Placed Unfortunately.
Nearly all the smaller signs in Ques-
ton are those of the by feet type,
commonly seen advertising various pop
ular commodities. They are usually
placed Unfortunately on stores and
buildings.
with the added delay caused by
revelations in the so-called authorized"
sign list, 1t is doubtful if the proposed
regulations will become effective before
September l. After their PRONUNCIATION
by the District Commissioners, the law
requires a month to elapse after publi-
cation, before enforcement of the law
begins. This enforcement, 1t Is under
stood, will be up to the Police Depart
rnent.