Ken Mergentime

It's been more than a year since the U.S. Supreme Court made its historic ruling in the case of Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona, which resulted in dramatic changes in the way that local governments can regulate non-commercial signs.

Previously, most federal courts ruled that cities could enforce a limited number of content-based regulations on signs—regulations relating to the actual content of a sign’s message—provided such standards were not intended to restrict speech. In Reed, the Court ruled that if a sign has to be read in order to determine if a certain regulation applies, then that regulation is content-based and therefore is in violation of First Amendment free speech.

As a result of the Court’s decision, cities and municipalities across the country can no longer dictate what message signs may or may not contain. Sign regulations can only specify which sign types are allowed, where they may be placed, and what size they can be—not what they say.

The case involved a sign ordinance from the Town of Gilbert, Arizona, that exempted several categories of non-commercial signs from permitting requirements—including political signs, ideological signs, and temporary directional signs (such as Mr. Reed's). The town did not prohibit any of these signs, but it did enforce different regulations for each separate category—depending on the content of the sign. The Court sided with Mr. Reed.

In the wake of the Reed decision, the International Municipal Lawyers Association (IMLA) quickly assisted its member cities and towns in making decisions on how best to adjust to   commercial signs. This document underwent many iterations.

Then, in April of this year the American Planning Association (APA)—which serves the community of planning professionals, including municipal and city planners—held its annual national conference in Phoenix. One of the main sessions being offered—set up by James Carpentier of ISA—focused on sign regulations after the Reed decision.

According to a report I read on the session—published for the benefit of the sign industry by the Foundation for the Advancement of the Sign Industry (FASI) and written by one of the presenters in the session: sign industry advocate Alan Weinstein (also a FASI board member)—there were more than 500 people in attendance.

Weinstein told attendees how courts have been applying the Reed decision. He noted that some courts have struck down, as content-based, regulations that had been found to be content-neutral before Reed. He also pointed out thatReed has not been applied in the courts toward commercial signs. In addition, there was much discussion on how local governments can revise their regulation of temporary, non-commercial signs to come into compliance withReed.

This to me was amazing—not the fact that Reed is actually being enforced in the courts, but that 500 city planners were so interested in getting guidance and input directly from the sign industry. Times, they are a-changing. I love it.