Detroit – After being charged in July 2023, William Shaw was ordered to serve 40 hours of community service for violating the city’s sign regulations by repeatedly putting up a commercial sign without the proper permit.
Shaw's community service began on Friday (June 28) in a clear demonstration of the consequences of his actions: He first removed illegally erected signs in the area of 7 Mile Road and Evergreen Road, before moving on to other locations with the city's blight team.
Violations of sign regulations are considered a public nuisance because they cause visual confusion.
According to court documents, Shaw was charged with 59 misdemeanor counts of violating the city's sign ordinance.
In 2022, Detroit's “Blight to Beauty” program began a nuisance sign removal process aimed at removing illegally installed signs following complaints from residents.
After 18 months of regular removals by the city's blight restoration department and liaison with business owners, the team has seen a reduction in illegal signs.
In the summer of 2023, teams removed an average of more than 400 signs, a significant decrease from an average of more than 1,700 during the same period last year.
Though the numbers are declining, some violators still refuse to remove their illegal signs even after receiving warnings, forcing the city to take legal action.
William Shaw IV The First Case
Of the top 20 companies identified, the most egregious was Shaw's Plumbing. From February 2022 to July 2023, the city committed funds and manpower to remove more than 615 Shaw's signs from locations throughout Detroit.
During this process, Shaw, who lives in Ecorse, has received warnings about the nuisance signs, text messages sent to every known phone number, multiple phone calls and a cease and desist letter from the Department of Law and Regulation asking him to stop littering the city with signs.
In addition to the warning, the Department of Law sent a Fair Warning Letter and requested that the owner or representative of Shaw's attend a meeting with the Department of Law on July 17, 2023 to address the continuing violations of city ordinances.
Shaw ignored all attempts to inform him of the sign ordinance and continued to nail signs to city property.
Shaw installed hundreds of illegal signs in neighborhoods across Detroit and went to extra effort and expense to maintain them.
Instead of a basic staple gun, Shaw used a nail gun with threaded nails and wide plastic collars that made the nails extremely difficult to remove; often city workers had to cut around the stubborn nail heads with a utility knife.
Shaw also placed the sign high up, making it difficult to remove, and he speculates whoever put it up may have been standing on a ladder or in the back of a truck rather than on foot.
Detroit's Law Department requested charges, and on July 28, 2023, the 36th District Court authorized the charges on 59 counts of violating the City of Detroit's sign ordinance.
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