news-record.com

GREENSBORO - City planners saw the electronic signs and asked, "Is this legal?"

The signs keep popping up across town. The N Club's electronic marquee on South Elm Street promotes featured performers; it also advertises for Gold's Gym and nearby student-housing providers.

The Walgreens drug store on West Market Street uses an electronic banner to promote seasonal products and new items.

And, perhaps the most obvious example, the Greensboro Coliseum's sign alerts passers-by to upcoming sports and entertainment events.

But some residents complain that electronic signs are out of place in Greensboro, and city ordinances regarding outdoor advertising don't address the new technology.

So the city's planners recently decided to hash out some new rules.

Rawls Howard, the city's planning manager for zoning administration, said he recently assembled a group of business owners, neighborhood advocates, downtown developers and others to discuss and eventually upgrade the city's electronic sign policy.

"There is limited regulation for these types of signs," Howard said. "We're seeing this technology sort of pop up, and our rules are pretty open in regards to that type of technology."

The rules regarding electronic changeable signs have been in place since the early 1990s, when the technology was not nearly as advanced or prevalent.

In fact, the only existing regulation bans flashing signs if each message doesn't pause for a prescribed amount of time.

Rocco Scarfone, owner of the N Club at 117 S. Elm St., said he recently received a notice informing him that his club's continuously scrolling marquee violated the ordinance.

But Scarfone said the case is "in a holding pattern" until the committee, of which he is a member, settles on updated rules.

He said an additional N Club violation of a downtown zoning ordinance preventing signs from advertising for off-premises businesses also is on hold because that rule may change. A representative of the city declined to comment.

"Our sign is exactly like the Greensboro Coliseum's," Scarfone said. "If the Greensboro Coliseum can do it, any business should be able to do it."

Rheva Wyrick, a Greensboro resident who works at the downtown law firm Tuggle, Duggins and Meschan, said she has heard some complaints about the electronic invasion. But she said the signs don't bother her.

"They're not making any noise," Wyrick said. "It's just advertising. It's in good taste."

But Betty Cone, one of the founders of the Old Greensborough Preservation Society and a member of the planning department's committee, said there is an appropriate place for electronic marquees - and downtown Greensboro is not it.

"I don't think anybody wants to say that electronic signs as a whole are bad," Cone said. "In your basic historic preservation district, it's difficult to justify going to what I'll call the 'technological extreme' when it would have never been there 100 years ago."

Howard said the sign committee, which has 17 members, will identify priorities at its next meeting, and the original plan to tackle only downtown ordinances may grow in scope.

"It may or may not," he said.

"We're still at the early stages."

Contact Emily Stephenson at 373-7080 or emily.stephenson@news-record.com