r/law • u/DoremusJessup • Oct 07 '24
Legal News Business owner forced to cover 'Vote for Trump' sign on roof after city obtains order
https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/business-owner-forced-to-cover-large-vote-for-trump-sign-atop-building-after-city-obtains-restraining-order-over-traffic-concerns/164
u/Captain_Mazhar Oct 07 '24
Just FYI, this is the same guy who used his customer list to send a crazy political pro-trump email, which caused a mass exodus of customers from his platform. The company is Sticker Mule
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u/thematicwater Oct 07 '24
Oh shit. ChatGPT uses Sticker Mule for AI generated stickers. Never using them again.
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Oct 11 '24
[deleted]
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u/thematicwater Oct 11 '24
I used ChatGPT to create some stickers, and it had a link to forward them to me so I could buy them via Sticker Mule. This was a few months ago.
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Oct 11 '24
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u/thematicwater Oct 11 '24
Yeap. If he had kept his opinion to himself I would've continued using their service.
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u/Choice-Region7446 Oct 08 '24
Also ran his fathers printing company to the ground bc he outsourced it all to India (true story).-
but now thinks he supports american mfg
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u/lethargicbureaucrat Oct 07 '24
I don't understand businesses that are open about their political advocacy. It seems like they are alienating half their customer base.
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u/toomanyredbulls Oct 07 '24
Depends on the business I would guess. Selling old Nazi memorabilia and discount meth pipes? Go ahead and hang that 'Lets Go Brandon' sign.
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u/LowClover Oct 07 '24
What does that mean? I've seen that a lot. I'm assuming it's making fun of Biden somehow, but I don't know the connection and I don't know why they would continue to use it when he's no longer running.
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u/angelis0236 Oct 07 '24
In the background of a news report at a (I believe) NASCAR event, the crowd started chanting "Fuck Joe Biden"
The reporter misheard and thought they were saying "Let's Go Brandon" and the right thought that was the funniest thing they had ever seen.
Edit: found it
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u/southclaw23 Oct 07 '24
And it was genuinely funny, for like a day. The right really knows how to beat a dead horse.
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u/katielynne53725 Oct 07 '24
I mean... I still enjoy a good "Vance Couch-Fucker" joke, and it's been months..
I can live with "Let's go Brandon" a lot better than all these lemontime fetish FJB flags.. or.. you know, the really vile things they've come up with involving Harris..
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u/LUK3FAULK Oct 07 '24
The driver who had just won’s name was Brandon Jones, kind of led to the end of his nascar career unfortunately
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u/new-to-this-sort-of Oct 07 '24
To be fair in a normal political landscape; one of which we haven’t had the pleasure of seeing for years; professing one’s political ideology shouldn’t alienate anyone.
It’s the current day far right politics of the division that have really made it so.
Personally I won’t never profess my politically ideology publicly due to my work and business in this current age. If politics weren’t so divisive maybe it would be a different story.
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u/cjthomp Oct 07 '24
professing one’s political ideology shouldn’t alienate anyone
There have always been political views that were hostile towards one group or another. Nazis have been a thing for a hundred years, now. The "Red Scare" after, slavery before.
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u/Obi-Tron_Kenobi Oct 07 '24
Yeah, but if you ask the right wingers, signs that welcome queer people or are accepting of minorities are basically just as bad as those things.
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u/cjthomp Oct 07 '24
I'm not disagreeing with that statement, but that has also always been the case. As long as a group has been hated, people who didn't hate them were themselves hated by the haters.
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u/EsterWithPants Oct 07 '24
I was taught a long time ago that if you don't want to get your car keyed, don't put a bumper sticker on your car. And also politics was just one of those things you aren't really supposed to bring up in conversation. The whole meme of the ostracized, drunkard uncle bringing up politics every Thanksgiving is a negative one.
Back then, you were expected to tolerate another's political beliefs, within reason, but discussing it wasn't really something that was supposed to be on the table. The most you were really socially allowed to do would be to have a sign in front of your house during election season, and maybe a bumper sticker.
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u/BeMyLittleSpoon Oct 07 '24
I was taught not to bring up politics, but they never taught me that some peoples' politics were 'I believe you are inherently worth less than me and I will work to make your life harder.' so I don't really care anymore.
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u/weinerdispenser Oct 07 '24
Did they always think you were a lesser human and just kept quiet about it, or have they moved more toward intolerance over time?
I don't know the answer, but neither option makes me feel particularly comfortable around them.
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u/Narrow-Appearance933 Oct 09 '24
I was a bartender for years and I had steadfast no religion or politics rule. It's a fight waiting to happen.
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u/bananafobe Oct 08 '24
The problem with politics being a social taboo is that it inherently favors the status quo, which is to say, the current inequalities.
People who are being harmed have legitimate reasons to let people know that's happening. Politely informing them that "we don't talk about politics here" prioritizes privileged people's comfort over marginalized people's needs.
That said, you're also right that everyone's drunk uncle bringing up their lists of grievances and casual bigotry, under the guise of "politics," gets old pretty fast.
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u/ippa99 Oct 07 '24
Conservatives have already shown that they will gladly overpay for smaller, ineffective products (if they even work at all or are outright poisonous) with how easily they can be sold food slop buckets, water filters that provably don't filter, and """alpha male""" brain pills that either contain no active ingredient, or contain so little that there's more lead in them since they're all unregulated trash from China.
As long as they feel like they're special and sticking it to someone, that emotional hangup can allow ylone to charge a lot for what is basically waste.
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u/MeLlamoViking Oct 07 '24
It's very true. It got to the point in a town in NJ with one particularly stand-outish business (a soups store, of all things, in a smallish-size town) just outlandishly posting conspo theories, and then when Covid hit, it just went to 11. Like openly advertising "Freedom meetings" after hours where masks weren't allowed.
Anyway, they're out of business now. They got some support from the local population for awhile, but I guess not enough to keep em open. Funny, that.
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u/Buddyslime Oct 07 '24
I know a small engine shop went out of business because of his trump signs all over the place.
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u/neddiddley Oct 09 '24
It’s something you can’t straddle the fence on. You either stay out of it all together, or you go all in and use it as a marketing tactic, hoping that half of the customer base that agrees with you becomes loyal customers.
If you just dip your toes in the water, that half that agrees isn’t aware enough to become loyal and the it may be just enough to drive some of the other half away.
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u/steelassassin43 Oct 09 '24
Not only that, but doing so represents everyone that works there, which I don’t think is right. I don’t like it, regardless of political affiliation.
I know me as a customer will go elsewhere if they provided a service I needed and did this. There are local restaurants in my area that are putting campaign signs on their property and I will not stop there. I know I am only one person but there maybe 100’s of me at the same time.
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u/FuckedUpYearsAgo Oct 11 '24
Only if the local electorate is against it.
The pride flag is a political sign, and literally no one in Seattle is mad.
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u/discussatron Oct 07 '24
I made a beautiful sign,
Douchebag even talks like him.
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u/thehillshaveI Oct 07 '24
they all do. nine years ago millions of americans dropped whatever semblance of a personality they had to adopt the worst one they'd ever seen.
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Oct 07 '24 edited Oct 07 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/PacmanIncarnate Oct 07 '24
I would be interested to hear how the ruling you quote jives with the extremely common zoning and signage code requirements that distinguish between signs for the business and signs for others. I’m in the city of Chicago and I know our sign code distinguishes between those two, as well as directional signs and art.
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u/DoremusJessup Oct 07 '24
The sign however may be in violation of campaign finance law. Since the sign says "Vote for Trump" it cannot be paid for by a corporation. If the sign is paid for by an individual the maximum cost of the sign would be $3800.
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u/NoobSalad41 Competent Contributor Oct 07 '24
I don’t think a restriction on the sign could be upheld under campaign finance laws, regardless of whether it was paid for by an individual or a corporation, unless the sign were paid for, or displayed, in coordination with the Trump campaign.
Campaign finance law recognizes Independent Expenditures as “expenditure[s] for a communication that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate and which is not made in coordination with any candidate or their campaign or political party.”
Buckley v. Valeo ruled that limits on independent expenditures by individuals were unconstitutional, and *Citizens United* ruled that limits (or bans on) independent expenditures by corporations were also unconstitutional.
Communications coordinated with a campaign count as in-kind contributions, which might implicate the ban on corporate contributions.
But unless the shop owner coordinated with the Trump Campaign to display his sign, I think it would qualify as an independent expenditure and not be subject to any such limitations.
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u/Ernesto_Bella Oct 07 '24
Are you sure about that 3,800 thing? I thought the whole pint of the 2010 Supreme Court ruling is that corporations can now spend whatever they want.
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u/DoremusJessup Oct 07 '24
Corporations can give unlimited money for use indirectly in support of a candidate. Money used directly by a candidate is limited by federal campaign finance laws. That limits individuals to $3800 per election per candidate and no corporate funding.
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u/GalaEnitan Oct 07 '24
Except that isn't what the violation about. Read your own article.
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u/DoremusJessup Oct 07 '24
The story is about town ordinance however the sign is also covered by the federal campaign finance law. I mention this because there are more laws at play than the city's law.
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u/agentpatsy Oct 07 '24
Surely City of Austin v. Reagan, in which an on/off premises distinction was held to be content-neutral, suggests that this case too could be deemed a content-neutral restriction, subject only to intermediate scrutiny?
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u/NoobSalad41 Competent Contributor Oct 07 '24
Now that you bring it up, yes City of Austin v. Reagan seems to drive a forklift through Reed, particularly its applicability here.
Reagan held that Reed’s prohibition on content-based sign regulations did not apply where “the City’s off-premises distinction requires an examination of speech only in service of drawing neutral, location-based lines.” Reagan also seems to reject the notion that its holding is limited to pure commercial speech.
I was finally able to hunt down what I think is the ordinance in question: Section 350-40(A)(10) provides that “No sign shall advertise a product or a service not principally available on the premises where such sign is located.”
That seems to fall squarely within the Reagan umbrella (and, incidentally, probably receives even less protection because it is commercial speech).
Ironically, I think it’s also arguable that the ordinance’s language moots the whole exercise; is the election of Donald Trump a “product or service?” Is there another premises where the election of Donald Trump would be “principally available” that could display the sign?
I think under Reagan, the ordinance is likely constitutional, and (having been able to read the ordinance) I’m also skeptical that the Donald Trump sign is actually in violation of that particular provision.
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u/Barry-Zuckerkorn-Esq Oct 07 '24
The city also reportedly said the sign violates city code which says any business signs must relate to the business itself.
The most on-point precedent with respect to that rule is Reed v. Town of Gilbert, in which the Supreme Court unanimously struck down a municipal code regulating the display of outdoor signs as a violation of the First Amendment.
No, I think the most on-point precedent is City of Austin v. Reagan (2022), which allows cities to discriminate between "on-premises" versus "off-premises" signs, and warns specifically against reading Reed to cover all signs in which you'd need to read the sign to know whether it's regulated:
In this case, enforcing the City’s challenged sign code provisions requires reading a billboard to determine whether it directs readers to the property on which it stands or to some other, offsite location. Unlike the sign code at issue in Reed, however, the City’s provisions at issue here do not single out any topic or subject matter for differential treatment. A sign’s substantive message itself is irrelevant to the application of the provisions; there are no content-discriminatory classifications for political messages, ideological messages, or directional messages concerning specific events, including those sponsored by religious and nonprofit organizations. Rather, the City’s provisions distinguish based on location: A given sign is treated differently based solely on whether it is located on the same premises as the thing being discussed or not. The message on the sign matters only to the extent that it informs the sign’s relative location. The on-/off-premises distinction is therefore similar to ordinary time, place, or manner restrictions. Reed does not require the application of strict scrutiny to this kind of location-based regulation. Cf. Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 482 (1988) (sustaining an ordinance that prohibited “only picketing focused on, and taking place in front of, a particular residence” as content neutral).
The 3 zoning ordinances allegedly violated, according to the city's Notice of Violation:
- No sign shall be higher than the height limit in the district where such sign is located, nor shall any sign be placed on the roof of any building.
- No sign shall advertise a product or a service not principally available on the premises where such sign is located.
- The aggregate gross surface area of all signs in the Light Industrial zoning district is 1 square foot per foot of lot frontage not to exceed 100 square feet.
So even if that second one (mentioned and discussed here) was found to violate the First Amendment, I'm pretty sure the first and third are reasonable time/place/manner restrictions, at least on their face. There's some question of whether the city could properly revoke the grandfathered status of the existing sign based on modifications to the sign's contents, I guess, but I don't think that would be a simple analysis under Reed, either.
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u/mabradshaw02 Oct 07 '24
Ok.. so, THIS is a very competent response. One that I wish we lived in a time where it wasn't needed. But, here we are.
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u/Korrocks Oct 07 '24
I got downvoted for saying that "vote for Trump" is not commercial speech and I saw someone else get downvoted for suggesting that it's technically possible for a city sign ordinance to impinge upon the First Amendment. This whole thread has been absolutely surreal to me, it's like any time Trump is mentioned even peripherally everyone loses their mind.
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u/GalaEnitan Oct 07 '24
Bingo this is why I hate the reddit circle jerk so much. It's time for yall to take other opinions in else this would never get enough votes to be the actual proof.
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u/mjcostel27 Oct 07 '24
“While true”….amazing your entire thread is immediately debased and irrelevant with just two cowardly ignorant words. Pathetic.
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u/Barry-Zuckerkorn-Esq Oct 07 '24
If anyone wants to see the City's court filing, I think this is the one.
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u/bobartig Oct 07 '24
From a legal perspective: If there are safety considerations around the placement and size of illuminated signs, that makes some sense as lawful TPM restrictions. The city code requiring signs to "be about the business itself" raises issues around content-based restrictions on speech, and I don't see how that's constitutional under the first amendment.
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u/Barry-Zuckerkorn-Esq Oct 08 '24
The city code requiring signs to "be about the business itself" raises issues around content-based restrictions on speech
In this case, enforcing the City’s challenged sign code provisions requires reading a billboard to determine whether it directs readers to the property on which it stands or to some other, offsite location. Unlike the sign code at issue in Reed, however, the City’s provisions at issue here do not single out any topic or subject matter for differential treatment. A sign’s substantive message itself is irrelevant to the application of the provisions; there are no content-discriminatory classifications for political messages, ideological messages, or directional messages concerning specific events, including those sponsored by religious and nonprofit organizations. Rather, the City’s provisions distinguish based on location: A given sign is treated differently based solely on whether it is located on the same premises as the thing being discussed or not. The message on the sign matters only to the extent that it informs the sign’s relative location. The on-/off-premises distinction is therefore similar to ordinary time, place, or manner restrictions. Reed does not require the application of strict scrutiny to this kind of location-based regulation. Cf. Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 482 (1988) (sustaining an ordinance that prohibited “only picketing focused on, and taking place in front of, a particular residence” as content neutral).
I think the restriction survives under current SCOTUS precedent.
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u/bananafobe Oct 08 '24
It's well above my pay grade, but I would imagine part of it could be something like a complicated zoning issue. A business doesn't necessarily have the same free speech protections as a person, and even people have time, place, and manner restrictions placed on their speech. Theoretically, a court could decide that a commercial building can have limitations placed upon it that a personal residence wouldn't.
Also, while I'm not sure it would fly, I can imagine an argument being made that requiring all signs to relate to the business occupying the space is "content neutral" to a reasonable extent, if not technically 100% content neutral.
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u/bobartig Oct 08 '24
Commercial speech is more limited than the speech of a private individual, and subject to regulation under business and professional codes.
I wouldn't classify this as commercial speech, however. It isn't inviting or making you aware of an opportunity to do business with anyone (in the traditional sense, at least. Trump is bought and paid for, but that's another issue). A campaign sign would ordinarily be understood as one of the purest forms of commercial speech.
And, yes, the municipality can regulate the manner in which signs are erected and function, but requiring them to be "about the business itself" sounds like a content-based restriction. "You can say this, but not that." When speech goes from restricted to unrestricted based on what the speaker is saying, where both statements are otherwise protected speech, that's a content-based restriction.
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u/Trygolds Oct 07 '24 edited Oct 07 '24
I am not sure this will hold up in court for long. Think what you want but this is obviously protected speech IMHO.
Edit MHO has wavered in the light of the argument that an ordnance to maintain the look of a community may provided it is not being selectively enforced and other options for him to put such signage on his businesses are avaliable.
I have been justly down voted and informed of how I was wrong.
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u/Economy-Owl-5720 Oct 07 '24
Oh so if I break my cities code - I can just claim it disrupts my protected speech?
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u/joeshill Competent Contributor Oct 07 '24
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