Spray-painted mural on Fort O. business under fire
Chattanooga has seen some large, new murals go up recently on the sides of buildings.
They range from a giant, gooey pepperoni pizza outside the new Southside Pizza at 612 E. Main St. to a 40,000-square-foot mural that covers all four sides of the windowless AT&T building on M.L. King Boulevard and centers on that neighborhood’s black history.
Meanwhile, city officials in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., will decide tonight how to handle a spray-painted advertisement on the side of Allied Glass & Mirror at 1105 S. Mack Smith Road that exceeds the maximum 300 square feet in size allowed by the city’s sign ordinance.
“This is the first time that we’ve had a sign like this painted onto the side of building,” Fort Oglethorpe City Manager Jennifer PayneSimpkins said. “The city found out after the fact that the sign had been installed.”
Allied Glass & Mirror’s owner, Walter Dix, said he paid a little under $500 to have the work done by artist Jackson Hendrickson. He’s spray-painted artwork on a number of businesses up and down Rossville Boulevard in Chattanooga and did a large mural inside the new Heaven & Ale brewpub in North Chattanooga.
“I think it’s pretty arty looking,” Dix said of Hendrickson’s painting
that depicts a woman in a towel advertising shower doors and two cartoon characters running with a pane of glass. “I think it looks pretty nice.”
However, the owner of RV Roof Install nearby filed a complaint that the mural was larger than was allowed.
“We heard from the business next door,” Payne-Simpkins said. “We said, ‘You know what? You’re right.’”
City officials encouraged Dix to file for a variance from the appeals board, which he did. The appeals board, which meets at 6 p.m. today, will decide how to handle the spray-painted advertisement.
“These things happen, and they’re mistakes, so we encourage people … to go to the appeals board, follow the process and see what the appeals board decides,” Payne-Simpkins said.
Even if the appeals board turns down Dix’s request for a variance, she said Dix could have part of the artwork painted over to reduce its size to 300 square feet.
“It would need to be edited down to 300 square feet,” Payne-Simpkins said.
The size of the mural — not its content or style — is all the city cares about, she said.
“We can’t limit content; that’s freedom of speech,” Payne-Simpkins said, adding that, “If it’s obscene, that’s different.”
It may be time for the city to update its sign ordinance to account for new types of signage such as murals and digital billboards, she said.
“Eventually, this will probably be a component of a sign ordinace update,” Payne-Simpkins said.