Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 29, 1992 TAG: 9202290176
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
PIZZA SHOP OWNERS SUE OVER SIGNS
The owners of a downtown pizza shop have sued the town over a disagreement, or maybe it's just a misunderstanding, over the shop's signs.Joe and Roya Nazare say the town has ordered them to take down two signs in the back of their pizza restaurant and sports bar.
"If we took those signs down, I'll tell you what would happen to us," Joe Nazare said this week. "We'd blow away like a tumbleweed."
After two appeals to the Blacksburg Board of Zoning Appeals, the Nazares have asked the Montgomery County Circuit Court to allow them to keep the signs.
The town is not asking the pizza shop owners to remove the signs, just get smaller ones, said Planning Director Bill West.
"There has been some confusion," he said. "I hate to be fighting them."
The Nazares moved their business from South Main Street last year and added a sports bar to their new North Main Street location.
Champs Sports Bar is upstairs, with a door on North Main Street and a stairway in the back. The only entrance to their other business, Champions Pizza, which is on the first floor, is a door in the back.
The back of the building faces the town's parking lot at Draper Road and Roanoke Street.
The Nazares say that at first the Planning Department said a total of 100 square feet of signs in the back would be allowed.
"We don't know that they were told that," West said.
Then, the Nazares say, after they put up two signs at a cost $2,000 to $3,000, the town said they were violating the town's zoning ordinance and would have to appeal to the zoning board.
They say the town told them they could not put any signs in the back because the business fronted a private alley that borders the parking lot.
"We don't know that it is an alley," West said. Maps show that properties along North Main Street run all the way back to the edge of the parking lot.
The town allows every business to have a 15-square-foot sign. Business with more street frontage are allowed signs a little larger.
The Nazares are allowed two 15-square-foot signs at the back of the building, West said. But because the current signs, with a total of 41 1/2 square feet, are too large, the Planning Department has told the Nazares to take them down.
"We're doing it because [the signs] are there and it's not permitted," West said. The Board of Zoning Appeals turned down the couple's variance request Jan. 8.
"Now I'm fighting the city; I've got to hire an attorney just to stay in business," Joe Nazare said. "It's not fair."
He and his wife are "in hock up to our eyeballs" to pay for the extensive renovation of the century-old-building they're leasing. He said the work they've done outside in the back - including the green and red skinny signs hanging on an old chimney - help beautify the town.
The Nazares said no one has complained about the signs, and they feel that after spending so much time and money to improve their business, the town is hassling them for no reason.
"I'm very sorry that they feel that way, I really am, and wish they had accepted the determination and ordered the signs the right size," West said. "And they are a good business."
West said he's patronized the old Champions Pizza, and plans to go to the new one - when the sign suit blows over.