Wow! is right–not just as an enticement on the flags to shoppers about low prices. It was also the reaction, in a not-so-positive way, that many Wilton residents had to the flags that popped up on River Rd. as part of a Stop & Shop marketing effort on Wednesday, April 22.
Residents took to social media to complain about the five flags flapping along the main street through Wilton Center, posting pictures and comments calling them ‘awful’ and ‘ugly.’ It inspired some people to go a step further and complain to the town’s zoning enforcement officer, Timothy Bunting.
“I just heard about them this morning. I got a call and someone stopped in,” he told GOOD Morning Wilton, shortly before 9 a.m. on Thursday, April 23. “I am going to address it. We’ll take care of it.”
Whether or not it’s an issue of esthetics, it is an issue of whether the store violated town signage regulations.
“Those aren’t allowed,” Bunting says, and cites the section in the zoning regs that outline was is and isn’t permitted for signage (section 29-8A 6-c, which can be found online). The ordinance describes prohibited signs, and lists, “Attention-getting devices such as banners, pennants, valances, flags (except governmental flags), streamers, searchlights, string or festoon lights, flashing lights, balloons or similar devices designed for purposes of attracting attention, promotion or advertising.”
In addition, it appears that the flags were erected on town-owned land, as they’re stuck into the ground between the sidewalk and the street curbing. That’s also a no-no.
The flag violation wasn’t an isolated incident either; Bunting said earlier this month he spoke with the Plaza’s landlord, Kimco Realty, regarding banners that had been installed on the parking lot light poles and hanging on the exterior wall of the store. Those banners also advertised Stop & Shop’s low-price promotion.
“They didn’t have permits to put them up, and those were being removed,” Bunting said.
Stop & Shop’s corporate marketing director Jim Keeroy said he was doing everything he could to get the flags taken down quickly–and had them removed by 11 a.m. Thursday morning.
According to Keeroy the promotion was implemented company-wide, but he’s working to better handle when specific municipalities have regulations that don’t fit with a promotion–such as the “Wow! Low Prices” flying flags.
“As a corporate entity, we have almost 900 stores. Plans and programs are developed, and there’s a sensitivity to where things belong and don’t belong, but sometimes the wires get crossed on that. We have a few stores where there are [signage restriction] issues like this. I’m attempting to get to the bottom of it, so that we can get it cleaner and not have these issues going forward,” Keeroy said, adding that CT and NJ are the states where there’s greater sensitivity to signs like the ones that were up on River Rd..
He also knows it’s a public relations mis-step.
“It’s a sensitive issue, and we certainly don’t want to be offending people–that’s the last thing we want to do,” Keeroy said.
Along those lines, he welcomes customer feedback. “If you see anything, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
Wilton Signs a “Hot Topic”
As for Wilton, Bunting knows that the issue of signage is a “hot topic,” as he called it. In fact, many of the commenters on Facebook complaining about the Stop & Shop flags cited the difficulty for small, locally-owned businesses to survive in Wilton with strict limits on how they’re able to use temporary signs.
But Bunting says he tries to apply the regulations fairly to every entity in town. “When I start getting complaints on too many signs or they’re out for too long, or they’re out without a permit, I sweep the entire area.”
Even though it’s been speculated that certain property owners get favored treatment or are exempt from town rules, Bunting says no exemptions like that exist for anyone, not even Kimco.
“Kimco doesn’t have any special deal with the town. There are no business or property owners that have a special deal with the town,” he says. “People can apply for an alternative signage program. Kimco just did that recently and it was just approved, but it did not include the signs they had up last week.”
So what progress had been made in the review of Town Signage Ordinances ?? It must be more than 6 Months since Megan Abrahamsen so ellowquently spoke to the Board of Selectmen with the facts to support her case on behalf of Wilton Small Businesses !