Opinion ID: 591208
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The portable display provisions

Text: 47 Portable display signs are mobile/temporary, electrical or nonelectrical, changeable copy sign[s] ... mounted on a trailer type frame with or without wheels or skids or portable wood or metal frame and not permanently attached to the ground. City of Douglasville, Ga.Code § 26-4. Section 26-8(D)(4) limits the maximum number of portable display signs that can be issued to a business to one temporary permit for every six months, the permit to last for a maximum of sixteen days. 48 In Harnish v. Manatee County, 783 F.2d 1535 (11th Cir.1986), this court held that aesthetics was a substantial government interest and a county's total ban on portable signs was constitutional. 7 In Don's Porta Signs, Inc. v. Clearwater, 829 F.2d 1051 (11th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 981, 108 S.Ct. 1280, 99 L.Ed.2d 491 (1988), this court found that regulations limiting the size and use of portable signs were constitutional as they directly furthered the governmental interest in aesthetics by producing at least a partial solution to the government's efforts to reduce visual clutter. 49 The City of Douglasville has expressed an interest in aesthetics, 8 and has chosen a partial solution by limiting the use of portable signs. Since it could have prohibited all portable signs in furtherance of this interest, by allowing a limited number, it is in fact more narrowly tailoring the restrictions to meet its purposes. Thus, the ordinance is constitutional. 50 We find Dills v. City of Marietta, 674 F.2d 1377 (11th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 905, 103 S.Ct. 1873, 76 L.Ed.2d 806 (1983), inapposite to this case. In Dills, this court overturned a regulation on portable signs because the city had presented no evidence to support its argument that it had prohibited such signs in the interest of aesthetics. Dills, 674 F.2d at 1381. 51 E. Messer's standing to challenge the variance powers of the Douglasville Board of Appeals and Adjustments 52 Section 26-10(1) allows for the owner of a proposed sign or his duly authorized agent to appeal from a decision of the building official. Messer challenges the delegation of variance powers to the Board as unconstitutionally vague and broad in violation of due process. To grant a variance, there must be a showing that the application of the ordinance is contrary to the purpose of the code, and that it would result in manifest injustice. 53 We affirm the district court's holding that Messer does not have standing to challenge the Board of Appeals, as it was not he who had requested and received the hearing. The appeal in this case had been made by the billboard companies Holland and Jimbo, who have since been dismissed from this case with prejudice. Messer has made no attempt at any showing that he requested and was denied a hearing, a variance, or that his individual due process rights were in any way violated. He has not attempted to exhaust his administrative remedies before appealing to this court. See Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U.S. 41, 50-51, 58 S.Ct. 459, 463, 82 L.Ed. 638 (1938) (no one is entitled to judicial relief for a supposed or threatened injury until the prescribed administrative remedy has been exhausted).