The Supreme Court Case of Reed v. Town of Gilbert came to a close on June 18, 2015. This case involved the potential issue of content-based discrimination. Specifically, the Town of Gilbert had different regulations for political signs, ideological signs and temporary directional signs.

The Decision: Content-based rules

The controversy arose when a religious institution was interested in placing signs directing parishioners to their establishment and realized that their signs were subject to stricter regulations than the political signs in their town. In Gilbert, Ariz., political signs were permitted to be more than five times larger than church directional signs. Also, church directional signs were only permitted for 12 hours prior to service, but political signs could be erected at any time. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the church, since the town’s regulations differed based on content.

Though it may sound like the underlying issue was religious freedom, this is not the case because the legislation did not specifically state that the different regulations were based on religion. Instead, this issue was related to freedom of speech.

Since this decision ruled in favor of the church, towns that have content-based sign regulations must face some possible implications.
NYC sign regulations

The City of New York has extensive regulations in the zoning text that relate to permitted signage, but these regulations will not necessarily be affected by this decision. The courts did not rule that sign regulation is unconstitutional; they ruled that discrimination based on content is unconstitutional. Therefore, the New York City regulations would still be considered constitutional as long as there are no provisions with different regulations based on content.

For any additional questions or comments on signage regulations, please contact Milrose Consultants.