Bagel guy blazes to victory

Judge Marsha Pechman, of Seattle's U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, yesterday struck down a Redmond law, already temporarily suspended, that banned some but not all portable signs in the city. (Note: Pechman's name was given incorrectly when this artcle was originally published.)


		PHIL H. WEBBER / P-I
	Dennis Ballen, owner of Blazing Bagels in Redmond, chats with Patty Menz of Sammamish as he takes advantage of his court victory and heads out the door of his shop to carry signs on Redmond Way.

She ruled that the 1997 ordinance unconstitutionally regulates what is known as commercial speech, a category that includes advertising.

The ordinance prohibits portable signs generally, asserting that they pose traffic, safety and aesthetic issues. It does make several exceptions, allowing signs dealing with politics, real estate and celebrations -- but not signs by businesses advertising their wares.

Dennis Ballen, owner of Blazing Bagels on 176th Avenue Northeast in Redmond, last June ran afoul of that provision in Redmond's municipal code when he draped an employee outside his store with a sandwich sign reading, in large red letters, "Fresh Bagels -- Now Open."

When the city threatened him for violating the law, he sued. A different judge on that court in January enjoined enforcement of the law, and yesterday's ruling dealt it a final blow, requiring that it either be scrapped or completely rewritten.

"The City's sign ordinance bans commercial portable signs, but carves out exceptions for non-commercial signs and certain categories of commercial signs," so it violates the First Amendment of the U.S. and Washington constitutions, Pechman wrote. She also gave several other reasons for invalidating the ordinance.

Seattle attorney William Maurer, who represented Ballen free of charge, said the case could set a controlling precedent in Washington state and may influence courts elsewhere, giving small-business owners "some degree of confidence they'll be able to communicate truthful, non-misleading information to all potential customers."

Maurer, who leads the local chapter of Washington, D.C.-based public-law firm The Institute for Justice, said he thinks no other case clearly addresses the legal question raised by Ballen v. City of Redmond.

"It's important for both small businesses and municipal governments to understand what are the constitutional boundaries on restrictions of commercial speech," he said yesterday. "Our goal is to knock down artificial distinctions between commercial speech and other types of speech."

Roberta Lewandowski, planning director for Redmond's Department of Planning and Community Development, said the city hasn't decided whether to appeal yesterday's decision, rewrite the law, or take some other action. Meanwhile, she said, "there are a lot of portable signs popping up on the right-of-ways. Not a lot of them are dancing, but we'd like them to be attached to stores, not cluttering up the roadways."

Ballen, who said 75 percent of his retail business is brought in by his human-borne sign outside the store, denied that his sign dances.

"That might be distracting," he said. "The bagel-sign guy just plays air guitar to country music, and he waves to people as they go by."

He said yesterday's decision makes him feel great.

"Before, I could have been thrown in jail for having that sign," he said.

P-I reporter Dan Richman can be reached at 206-448-8032 or danrichman@seattlepi.com

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