Ms. Moore was issued a summons for an infraction of the town law on temporary signs ordering her to appear in Shelter Island Justice Court on Monday, September 28, which she did with attorney Albert D'Agostino. The case “will likely be transferred to another jurisdiction” because of the relationship of the Town Justices to the law, Mr. D'Agostino said. Town Justice Helen Rosenblum drafted the zoning statute and Justice Patricia Quigley has represented a client in a similar case, according to Mr. D'Agostino. Regardless of the court venue, Mr. D'Agostino is preparing to defend the right to post a real estate sign.
“Our position is that a municipality has the right to address the size of a sign within reason” but not the content of the sign. If a property owner hires a broker to be his agent, he has the right to post the broker's name on a For Sale sign, the attorney asserted. “It goes to the freedom of speech of the property owner. The town has no right to say what you can say on that sign.”
“I see it as an issue for the property owner, not the broker,” he added. The town issued the summons charging a violation of zoning code to the broker, not to the property owner.
In addition to the Constitutional issue, the law may interfere with commercial transactions, the attorney added.
“As long as a sign is in good taste and a reasonable size, legislating what can be said on a sign goes down a slippery slope,” he commented.
Mr. D'Agostino's defense of Ms. Moore may do more than determine the outcome of a zoning violation. “A challenge to the law will be part of the defense,” he said.
Town Building Inspector William Banks, who wrote the summons, said it was the only one issued since the Town Board instructed him to enforce the law after he sent warning letters to brokers last July.
“We'll just see where it goes,” he said of the court action, adding that sometimes you won't know if a law can be upheld “until it goes to the mat.”
Mr. Banks “hates to see the signs plastered” all over the Island, he said, and he's “not even a fan of the political signs.” But those will be gone in a few weeks, he added.
Of the real estate signs, he commented, “I don't think it bodes well for the community to see half of it for sale.”
When asked why the property owner was not issued a summons, he responded that he was “not clear on that.” Usually a zoning code infraction will go to the property owner or to the owner and a contractor. “In this case it may be that the owner left it to the professional” to post the sign, he said.