CAR WASH OPERATOR APPEALS SIGN RULE.Byline: Douglas Haberman Daily News Staff Writer A Studio City car wash owner was told to clean up his act Tuesday by the city Building and Safety Commission, which unanimously denied his request to exempt a 26-foot-high sign from city regulations. But city officials said Ben Forat, owner of Studio City Hand Car Wash, still might be able to keep the $55,000, three-dimensional sign - a giant fiberglass hand holding a sponge topped by a replica Earlier document exchange software from Farallon Communications, Inc. that converted a Windows or Mac document into a proprietary viewing format. The viewer could be distributed separately or embedded within the document itself, turning it into a single-document viewer. 1957 Corvette corvette, small warship, classed between a frigate and a sloop-of-war. Corvettes usually were flush-decked and carried fewer than 28 guns. They were widely employed in escorting convoys and attacking merchant ships during the great naval wars of the late 18th and automobile. If he removes the business's name from the sponge - the only lettering on the sign - that might transform it from an advertisement to art, which could free him from sign regulations in the city code, officials said. Forat said in an interview that he will try to appeal the board's denial to the City Council and also will consider stripping the lettering off the sign and erecting a legal sign elsewhere on the property. ``Whatever it takes to keep it, we're going to do it,'' he said, adding that the sign saved the once-failing business. An attempt to convert the sign into sculpture would meet with opposition from the Studio City Residents Association, which has fought the sign. ``We would simply say this is making a travesty of the law,'' Polly Polly Biotechnology A Poll Dorset sheep cloned from sheep skin cells, which has a human gene in each cell. See Dolly. Ward, association vice president, said after the meeting. The association welcomed Tuesday's board vote. ``We are pleased to see the sign laws enforced,'' Ward said. ``There are a lot of violations along the boulevard. This is the most egregious e·gre·gious adj. Conspicuously bad or offensive. See Synonyms at flagrant. [From Latin .'' Under city regulations, the sign is too close to the sidewalk A Microsoft service that was launched in 1997 to provide online arts and entertainment guides on the Web for major cities worldwide. In 1999, Microsoft sold Sidewalk to Ticketmaster, which continued to provide guides, ticketing and other information to the MSN network. and the fiberglass hand exceeds the allowed size for a sign's support structure - which, for most signs, is a metal pole. Officials say the sign also is too tall and its overall size is too large, but because of an error those two allegations were omitted from the agenda Tuesday. Because of that omission, the board considered only Forat's request to overturn the first two violations. The commission will consider his appeal of the other two violations at a later meeting. The Studio City Residents Association feared that making an exception in this case would open the door to endless requests for sign regulation exemptions, Ward said. The residents group, which has 2,000 members, is working with the city to see violations by other businesses corrected. At Tuesday's hearing, 10 Forat supporters tried to persuade the board to be lenient le·ni·ent adj. Inclined not to be harsh or strict; merciful, generous, or indulgent: lenient parents; lenient rules. in his case. Bruce Lanzner, a businessman who leases space in a commercial building Forat owns, said the issue is community standards Community standards are local norms bounding acceptable conduct. Sometimes these standards can itemized in a list that states the community's values and sets guidelines for participation in the community. . ``If the community didn't like the sign, it wouldn't go to the car wash,'' he said. Saying the matter isn't a popularity contest, the five-member board sided with the residents association. ``What if a pornography pornography Depiction of erotic behaviour intended to cause sexual excitement. The word originally signified any work of art or literature depicting the life of prostitutes. business would want to put up a big body part?'' commission Vice President Lee Kanon Alpert asked. ``My concern is setting a precedent along Ventura Boulevard Ventura Boulevard is one of the primary east-west thouroughfares in the San Fernando Valley; as it was originally a part of the El Camino Real (the trail between Spanish missions), Ventura Boulevard is the oldest route in the San Fernando Valley. It was also U.S. ,'' board member Corina Alarcon said. ``I'm not comfortable with setting this precedent.'' |
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