Suit settled, Castle Hills OKS billboards

A Phoenix company that sued Castle Hills in federal court for preventing it from putting up two billboards will get to erect them following a settlement.

Castle Hills recently issued permits to Kenjoh Outdoor Advertising LLC allowing the company to install digital billboards in the1100 and1900blocks of Northwest Loop 410’s access roads, City Attorney Marc Schnall said Tuesday.

However, no new digital-display signs will be permitted under an amendment to the the city’s ordinance in November, he said.

“Unless this ordinance is amended in the future, those would be the last digital billboards or digital-display signs in the city of Castle Hills,” Schnall said of Kenjoh’s signs.

He believed there are three existing digital billboards in the city.

John Kirirah, Kenjoh’s president, had no comment.

Kenjoh sued Castle Hills in September, claiming the city’s sign regulations were unconstitutional. The case was dismissed Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Jason Pulliam.

Kenjoh wanted to build the billboards on private property but alleged it was told by the city that billboards were only permitted on property owned or controlled by the city.

The city code states the purpose of the rules “is to avoid visual clutter that is potentially harmful to traffic and pedestrian safety, property values, busi

ness opportunities and community appearance.”

In its lawsuit, Kenjoh said the “city cannot show that digital billboards on city-controlled property are any less harmful or cause less visual clutter than digital billboards on privately owned property.”

The company also said the ordinance was unconstitutional because it prohibited noncommercial messages, such as political advertising.

The amended ordinance has no restriction on content.

“The city isn’t going to control content,” Schnall said.

City staff recommended amendments to the ordi

nance to conform with an August ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the regulation of signs.

In that case, an Austin company sued over that city’s ordinance.

The company sought permits to digitize its “offpremises” billboards, but that was denied by the city because the ordinance said only on-premise signs could be digitized. An offpremise sign is one that advertises something not located on the site where the sign is installed.

The appeals court ruled “the on-premises/offpremises distinction is content based and fails under strict scrutiny. It thus runs afoul of the First Amendment.”