{"id":5441,"date":"2018-07-18T02:28:57","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T06:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=5441"},"modified":"2018-07-18T02:29:32","modified_gmt":"2018-07-18T06:29:32","slug":"lavallette-consulting-with-dot-to-ban-liquor-store-sign-guy-from-route-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2018\/07\/lavallette-consulting-with-dot-to-ban-liquor-store-sign-guy-from-route-35\/","title":{"rendered":"Lavallette Consulting With DOT to Ban Liquor Store ‘Sign Guy’ From Route 35"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A liquor store employee holds a sign on Route 35 advertising the business. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Last month, Lavallette residents and elected officials aired complaints about a liquor store employee who is paid to stand beside a state highway with a sign directing drivers to the store. Now, officials say, the state Department of Transportation is getting involved.<\/p>\n

“I am in contact with the state DOT,” said Council President Anita Zalom. “I’ve talked to four people there.”<\/p>\n

Some residents have complained<\/a> that a man holding a sign on the side of the road is not aesthetically appealing and that he is nearly standing in someone’s backyard. But in an interview with Shorebeat<\/a>, the owner of Lavallette Liquors said the sign is crucial to the success of his business; vacationers from New York and North Jersey see the sign on their way south.<\/p>\n

The store owner will most likely receive a fine shortly, according to officials.<\/p>\n

“He will be served with a fine because you are not allowed to stand on state property to advertising something,” said Zalom. “There is not even a permit available for that.”<\/p>\n

The state owns and has right-of-way access several feet in from the highway. Beyond those few feet, the land is owned by the resident of the home that borders the highway.<\/p>\n

Joe Loundy, the store owner, said the business earns the majority of its money during the summer season from tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they go past us, they\u2019ll usually just keep going because they know Spirits is down the road,\u201d Loundy said. \u201cHaving the sign out there brings a lot of our customers here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philip George, the borough’s attorney, previously cited potential constitutional issues with ousting the sign-holder (“commercial speech” is still protected speech, he said), but acknowledged that advertising is not allowed on state property.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has a lot less protection than, say, if you were speaking about politics,\u201d said George. \u201cBut it\u2019s still protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month, Lavallette residents and elected officials aired complaints about a liquor store employee who is paid to stand beside a state highway with a sign directing drivers to the store. Now, officials say, the state Department of Transportation is getting involved. “I am in contact with the state DOT,” said Council President Anita Zalom. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,3,2],"tags":[1382,423,41,1384],"class_list":["post-5441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-lavallette-government","category-lavallette","tag-lavallette-liquors","tag-njdot","tag-route-35","tag-sign"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/IMG_4002.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-1pL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}