ACLU challenges Westmont Borough signs law

Aug. 16—The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania asked Westmont Borough to cease and desist from enforcing the part of its municipal code that prohibits displaying temporary signs for more than 30 days.

April Eyler and Daniel Rozov filed a complaint with the ACLU, "regarding several violation notices from the Borough directing them to remove a political lawn sign from their residential property," according to the organization's letter sent to Council President Marc McCall and Mayor Robert Callahan on Tuesday.

Callahan said council will likely discuss the matter at a future meeting.

"I can't say anything," Callahan said. "I'm not a legal scholar. All I can really tell you is we're going to refer it to the solicitor for review and see what he recommends."

Solicitor Michael Parrish said: "I literally have not really had a chance to digest it yet. Certainly, it's something we're going to take a look at and respond accordingly."

Westmont Borough's code states: "The property owner on whose property the temporary sign is erected shall remove said sign on or before the 30th day after it was erected. In the event that the property owner fails to remove said temporary sign, it may be removed by the Borough at the property owner's expense."

The code specifically mentions that campaign signs, which indicate support for a named candidate for public office, are only permitted for 30 days before a primary or general election. This year's primary has passed and the general election is not until Nov. 8.

Westmont's law states that violators "shall, upon conviction of such offense, pay fines or may be sentenced and committed to the county jail."

The ACLU contends that the requirement to remove signs "is a facially unconstitutional abridgment of our clients' — and indeed all Westmont residents' — rights under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."

The letter continued: "Because this matter involves core political speech, i.e., speech about the upcoming election, we request you to do three things immediately: 1) suspend enforcement of the unconstitutional restrictions on political and other non-commercial signs; 2) formally withdraw the pending violation notices sent to our clients; and 3) agree to amend Westmont's sign ordinances within 90 days."

Parrish said he did not know when the sign laws were written, but suspected it was "not very recent" and that they were put in place to address "property values, aesthetic values, the type of things that are traditionally important in communities by way of residential properties."

Several recent legal cases have dealt with signage, including Reed v. Town of Gilbert (2015), in which the Supreme Court of the United States "held that content-based regulations of property signage are subject to the most exacting scrutiny, which in practice means they are almost always unconstitutional," according to the ACLU's position in its letter.

Parrish said the ACLU's response "was not surprising given the challenges that we have seen in a number of other municipalities recently and given the age of the ordinances that exist in the bulk of the local municipalities."

The ACLU asked Westmont officials to "advise us in writing by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, August 17, that you have and will comply with the foregoing requests."

"My expectation is that we'll be reaching out to them," Parrish said. "Obviously, the expectation that a municipal entity can act within 24 hours is unreasonable, given that, by way of formal action, we need to advertise, and do those types of things to take any type of formal action."

The ACLU said "we will take emergency legal action to declare the ordinance unconstitutional, to enjoin enforcement, and to cover plaintiffs' attorneys' fees" if any residents complain about receiving further violation notices.