Politics & Government
Verizon Store Owner Plans to Sue Village
The Board of Appeals voted Tuesday to deny the owner an exception to village code to keep up the four advertisements on his building's facade.
The owner of the North Oakland Avenue Verizon store is planning to sue Shorewood after the village's Board of Appeals determined Tuesday that he could not keep up the four wall advertisements on the store’s façade because they are in violation of village code.
The owner, Dan Rosenbaum, said he deserved an exception because his building does not have windows along the wall with the four signs. He said other businesses are able to have more signage because of window space.
“If I didn’t have something up there, it wouldn’t look good,” Rosenbaum said. “I use the signs to clean up the building so it looks professional.”
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The Board of Appeals upheld the Design Review Board’s not to grant the owner a special exception to have more than the two wall signs a Shorewood business is allowed to have when located on a corner.
“They didn’t like the precedent it would set throughout the village that businesses could keep requesting more advertisements for their façade, and they didn’t like the pure quantity of the advertisements,” Planning and Zoning Adminostrator Ericka Lang, the staff liason to the Design Review Board, explained to the Board of Appeals.
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Board of Appeals member James Korom motioned to overturn the decision and grant an exception, but he stood alone.
“Would we rather have the signs, or just a big blank wall?” Korom said. “They’re professionally done signs; they look good. As I walked through the area there, my eye wasn’t drawn to the building. It looks consistent with the area.”
After the board voted to deny the exception, Rosenbaum said in an interview that he would take whatever steps necessary to appeal.
“I’m going to appeal this as far as I can,” he said. “Those signs draw business. If I have to take them down, who knows what the building will look like.”
Before he put up the wall signs early this year, the four frames were filled with artwork — something the village never took issue with because they were not advertisements.
“The pictures were four years old and faded,” Rosenbaum said. “I replaced those with professional advertisements. I tried to make it blend in to the buildings around me, and that’s what it seems to do.”
In order to challenge the board’s decision, Rosenbaum will have to file a suit with the Milwaukee County Circuit Court.
