Woods, Not Neon, Bad for Business, Owners Say

The issue of neon signs in the windows of Grosse Pointe Woods' businesses is far from over, according to organizers of a repeal effort underway. 

co-owner Alan Domzalski is helping lead efforts to gather signatures from residents to at a minimum put the neon sign ban on the November ballot, where voters could decide the issue, but optimally get enough signatures to repeal the ban immediately.

Despite hundreds of petitions signed by Woods residents in support of keeping the neon signs for the eight businesses who appealed the planning commission's decision, city council on Jan. 17 denied each one.

Before the appeals began on Monday, Mayor Robert Novitke announced to the packed room that it would be difficult to grant exceptions to one business and not all. He also told the room it would be difficult to then tell the other 40-some businesses that didn't appeal that they couldn't have it, too.

The denials happened without much, if any, discussion by council members. The two council members who did speak, Lisa Pinkos Howle and Joseph Sucher, opposed each other throughout the meeting.

Howle is in support of keeping the neon signs and motioned in favor of each one, giving specific reasons why it would benefit that business. Meanwhile, Sucher repeatedly motioned to deny the appeals, reading a scripted motion, receiving support from councilman Todd McConaghy.

"It's kind of unusual for no one to speak. Usually at a meeting, you hear everyone give their opinion," Pinkos Howle said. "McCubbins is not the same barber shop without that sign. I think it's a travesty."

The issue has spiraled into talk around town that isn't new, according to many business owners and residents, related to how unfriendly the Woods is to its businesses. 

Novitke and some council members disagree. Novitke said he hears nothing but positive response from owners, whom he typically questions about their experiences with the city following a ribbon-cutting ceremony. 

He also gets a lot of positive feedback from people outside of the business community and from other municipalities, he said.

Sucher said the concern of council is not the businesses but the residents. He said the city is here to offer businesses the opportunity to provide goods and services residents want. The city, he said, doesn't want businesses the residents don't.

The information presented by the business owners during the council meeting, he said, was all emotional and not factual. The issue at hand was simple: Were the signs breaking the law? Yes, he said.

Councilman Art Bryant who voted unanimously to deny all of the neon sign appeals announced that he had been against the total ban when it was being discussed. He said in an interview afterward he felt his hands were tied in how to vote because the ordinance itself was not at issue. The legality of the signs were the issue, he said.

Councilwoman Pinkos Howle says the Woods is bad for business. She told fellow council members and a crowded audience Monday repeatedly how the decisions they continually make affecting businesses will only have the long-term effect of sending those same businesses away. 

"I would have to totally agree. That's how its been going for the last eight years," Howle said of the suggestion the city is business unfriendly. "It seems like there are always battles. We're all struggling. Why would you want to take away their business?"

She knows of at least two businesses that left the Woods to move to other Pointes because of the business-unfriendly practices, she said. 

Mike Alfonsi, who has worked at his family's restaurant for 33 years, said the Woods has never seemed to care about businesses. 

"It's too much government," Alfonsi said, of the neon sign ban. "It's getting ridiculous. It's nitpicking. Neon is a tool for business, it always has been. It's a convenience for the customers."

The convenience is that at night, the neon allows passersby to see the restaurant is open, he said, without stopping and having to walk up to the door. Little Tony's lost their appeal this week. Their neon is an outline of their two windows facing Mack Avenue. The neon is behind wrought iron that frames the window. 

Another Mack Avenue business owner, Ralph DeFour, who does not have a neon sign, said the complete banning of all neon takes the ordinance too far. 

"I don't think there should be a blanket prohibition of one type of light," he said. "They can specify size, whether it can blink, or whatever. There was no one in this area that had any offensive neon on this street."

Roger Mason, who is a newer Mack Avenue business owner of an old Woods business, Pointe Electronics, said he would have appealed too if he thought there had been any chance to win. He said he was discouraged by many people saying there was no way appeals would seriously be considered. 

Mason had to remove a non-neon, LED open sign from his window. On Thursday, he had a large television in the front window with an open sign on the screen that appeared to be neon. He plans to support the signature gathering, he said.

Several other business owners in the Woods echoed agreement about the city but declined to be named out of fear they would then be targeted for violations. 

Among the eight businesses who appealed to keep their sign, at least two have had their neons up for decades: McCubbins Barbershop, where the sign has been up for  52 years, and , at 35 years. Both of the owners said they plan to participate in the efforts to gather signatures to repeal the ban.

Both have their neons still lit despite the decision earlier this week. Sheldon Weisberg said Thursday he is waiting for someone to come arrest him. He is disgusted by decisions regarding neon and said in his 45 years as a business owner at that location, the tide has changed as the administration changed. 

"I'm very bitter about this," he said. "There has been a complete change in attitude. It's a hostile approach."

With three major chain pharmacies within a quarter-mile of his local store and changes in the insurance industry, this is one more blow to business, he said. Insurance companies are forcing people to get 90-day mail prescriptions and if they don't they pay more from their pockets, he said.

"It's like being stabbed in the heart from many angles," Weisberg said. "This is a little more frosting on the cake. It breaks my heart. This place has been my passion. I don't have customers. I have friends."

This is the second time Weisberg has been forced to alter his signage by the city. Several years ago they required he paint over the side of his building facing what is now a bank. The now blank wall of the building does not help passing motorists identify what's there.

When Domzalski went to the city to apply for a permit to display a sandwich board outside his Mack Avenue candy store, he thought he was doing the right thing by trying to comply with the city's many ordinances regulating businesses. 

After completing the proper paperwork and submitting it, he was told he had to submit a rendering of what the board would look like. Though not an artist, Domzalski did his best, adding balloons to the hand drawn rendering just for fun. 

As he stood at the counter, with a line of construction people behind him, the woman behind the counter reviewed the drawing. 

"'Balloons? You want balloons?' she asked me," Domzalski said. "'There's a separate permit for those.' she told me. I looked back at the line behind me and they said 'welcome to Grosse Pointe Woods'," he said. 

She handed the drawing back and Domzalski erased the balloons. 

Now, Domzalski is trying to help make a change. He's offered to pay a significant portion of the cost to complete the repeal efforts and to recruit people to do a door-to-door campaign to gather signatures. 

A total of 10 percent of the Woods registered voters must sign the petition to get it on the November ballot for a general election vote, according to the city's ordinances regarding repeals. If the group can get 25 percent of the registered voters to sign, the ban would be repealed immediately, according to the repeal ordinance.

Currently, the repeal wording is being reviewed by an attorney. The group will have 21 days to gather the necessary number of signatures, according to the repeal ordinance.