Hole In One (Department)
Doughnut-gate has shined the light on a city department many believe has been run as an arrogant fiefdom – with little practical application – for many years.
The Commercial Signs and Zoning division of the Land Development Office within the Office of Economic and Community Development made the call recently to tell the owner of Koch’s Bakery on Broad Street that the just-completed, $11,000 mural of flying doughnuts on one previously overgrown and graffitied side of its building would have to go. It was advertising her business, the owner was told, and therefore is treated as a sign in city code. The owner understood that the city’s sign ordinance did not require murals to have a permit as long as they didn’t have “written trade names, advertising or commercial messages” (which the doughnuts mural does not). But a confusing conflict in wording and understanding over this issue is only one of the division’s problems.
Through the years, many people who own Chattanooga businesses have told stories about harrassment from this division of city government — having to re-do an expensive sign because it was a fraction of an inch off, being forced to remove an unobtrusive, temporary sign board, and having to keep an unhelpful sign in place because it had been attached to the building for years under a previous business.
Yet, no permit is required for graffitists to express their creativity and mark up downtown buildings — with no permission from owners — and little action is apparently taken to prevent it.