This ordinance required the permanent removal of signs that the city government felt contributed too much to the visual clutter along the city’s streets and highways. The idea, as expressed in the city’s regulations, was that “reasonable sign regulations are necessary to protect public property and the aesthetics of the community.”

In practice, this means that no sign can be higher than 15 feet when placed along commercial districts or similar areas.

At the same time, the city decided to make things easier for companies by giving them 15 years to comply with the regulations. Due to the COVID pandemic, this deadline was extended from 2022 to 2024.

A bill passed by the North Carolina General Assembly that went into effect on July 9 now states that a city cannot force the removal of an advertising sign on a business’s property unless it pays compensation to the owner.

It is not yet clear what impact this will have on the ongoing process of removing the signs.

Chris Murphy, planning director for Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, said there are about 3,300 freestanding signs in Winston-Salem and that the number of signs that still do not meet height regulations is at 300 at last check.

Even as we were covering this story, signs were falling down. A Journal reporter noticed a large sign above the Advance Auto Parts store in the 3700 block of North Patterson Avenue on Aug. 7 and made a note to show it to a photographer. Within days, the large sign was gone and a replacement sign stood on a detached metal base.

Although the deadline was July 1, Murphy said there are no plans to immediately penalize the owners of the remaining signs, but rather to send the sign owners another letter to remind them of the deadline.

In light of the law passed by the General Assembly, even this plan is now being called into question.

“It messed everything up,” Murphy said.

Taking down or replacing signs isn’t cheap: Tracy Myers, the owner of Frank Myers Auto Maxx on N. Patterson Avenue, said he paid $15,000 to have one of his large signs taken down, and $7,000 to have the other one taken down. He said the new – and smaller – sign he put up as a replacement is between $10,000 and $12,000.

“It’s frustrating,” Myers said. “We follow the rules, but when you consider it takes $30,000 to put up a sign…”

Plus, he said, the new sign isn’t nearly as visible as the old one. The dealership is right off the Germanton Road exit on U.S. 52 in north Winston-Salem, and the big sign drew customers.

“This big sign … people could see it about a mile and a half down the road on the straightaway,” he said. “So we could tell people to look for the sign and then look for the red roof that our store has.”

Late one July afternoon, several employees of Burchette Sign Corp. of Colfax were in the parking lot of the KFC fast-food restaurant in an outdoor lot at the Parkway Plaza shopping center on Silas Creek Parkway.

About an hour after they arrived, the result of their labor was visible: a large, six-foot-tall barrel-shaped sign that looked like a larger-than-life bucket of chicken was now on the trailer that workers had pushed into place to take it away.

“Ultimately, it’s just another sign,” said Burchette employee Sean Young.

Sign owner Dustin Millirons recounted how he had to take down another sign at the KFC on University Parkway. He joked that he had told people he was going to put the KFC bucket sign over his swimming pool.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said.

According to regulations adopted by the city in 2007, the 15-foot height limit applies in areas zoned for highway operations, general commercial, limited and general industrial, and some other uses. In some office areas, an eight-foot limit applies, and in residential areas, the limit is six feet.

Sam Patel, the manager of the Green Valley Motel on Patterson Avenue, expressed the resignation some business owners felt about City Hall’s regulations, at least before they learned of the state’s new sign ordinance. Patel’s company didn’t take over the motel until 2016, long after the sign ordinance’s grace period was well underway.

“It is what it is,” he said. “We’re working on it. This sign has probably been here for 50 years.”

Rep. Kevin Crutchfield (R-Cabarrus) of North Carolina, who introduced the amendment to Senate Bill 607 that added the sign compensation provisions to the law, views the measure as a property rights issue.

“These companies have invested money and put their signs on their property,” he said. If the city comes and says you can’t use that anymore, it’s like the city saying you can’t keep your house anymore.”

Crutchfield said he knows of cases across the state where business owners’ signs have been targeted because of city regulations – from Waynesville in the west to the city of Wake Forest near Raleigh. Cities can still require signs to be removed, he said, but owners should be compensated.

Crutchfield and his wife are founders of a sign company called Casco Signs, which he described on his campaign website as a multimillion-dollar company that serves clients nationwide. Crutchfield said the law changes would actually cost his company money because “we’re not getting paid to remove old signs or build new ones to replace them.”

Winston-Salem City Attorney Angela Carmon said her office is still reviewing the newly passed law to determine what impact it will have on the signs the city is removing.

“My staff and I are still in the process of processing this information,” Carmon said. That work includes researching and studying the potential impact of the new law on the city’s sign oversight, as well as options for moving forward.

At some point, she said, the matter will be brought before the Winston-Salem City Council.

Myers of Frank Myers Auto Maxx, meanwhile, said he has contacted his attorney about the situation.

“I hope I get paid for my sign and for taking down the old one,” he said. And it’s possible, he said, “that the city will have to pay out a lot of money to the people who had to take down their signs.”

Sign height changes took a long time to come to fruition in the mid-2000s, as they became caught in a tug-of-war between community image and business interests.

The Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce opposed the original version, which required replacement every 10 years, as did the CEOs of companies that rely heavily on their signs: Don Flow (of several Flow dealerships), Graham Bennett (Quality Oil), Steve Williams (Wilco Hess), Jack Perkins (Ad Sign Corp.) and Evelyn Acree (Mechanics and Farmers Bank).

That was in September 2006. In March 2007, the ordinance was amended and the grace period for over-tall signs was extended to 15 years. The opposition from business was still there, but it was weaker: When the revised sign ordinance, including the 15-year grace period, was presented to the Winston-Salem City Council, Gayle Anderson, then president of the Greater Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce, offered her “reluctant support.”

“It’s certainly not what the business community would most support, and the main reason for that is the fact that existing signs that are legal today will not be unaffected by this proposal,” Anderson said.

Mark Owens, president of Greater Winston-Salem Inc., said the chamber maintains its stance that the ordinance should be repealed:

“We hope that in the future they will require that all newly installed signs meet current standards rather than requiring businesses to pay to remove and replace existing signs,” Owens said.