You may well be right, Craig, but I feel compelled to point out that local zoning boards often get wrapped up in their own importance.  I strongly recommend that all suburban readers take the time to read the minutes of their local planning commissions and zoning boards of appeal, because (A) they’ll educate you on all of the wacky rules about signs and hedges and so forth that you are probably unaware of, and (B) they are frequently (unintentionally) hilarious.

Paragraphs of grown adults arguing about whether signs should be allowed to go 3 inches above the limit.  Pages of debate on the merits of “turn here” signs, stacking space, and parking lot/store space ratios.  Komedy Klassics all.

So while you may be on to something here, Craig, it’s also entirely possible that the local planning commission was truly outraged at the size of the sign relative to the allowable sign size.  Really.

Mr. Sam Moore has also killed a man in the past, outside a bar in Shockoe bottom sometime in the late 80’s/90’s. ( he has the tear tatto under his eye)  He got off with very little jail time, likely having to do with wealthy parents and being from old VA money; dad was a judge or something along those lines.

While I’ve never been to club velvet, it is notorious for drugs and “services” rendered in the upstairs lounge. This does not sit well with the Local pols, and when he wanted to put a new semi-nude club across the street from the children’s museum they became even more incensed.

Well, fine.  If the club is a menace, there are laws to shut it down. If Moore is a criminal, he should be dealt with in the appropriate fashion.

But the point of the First Amendment is not to only protect the popular speech of nice folks. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. If what you guys are telling me is true, if I lived in that neighborhood I’d be trying pretty hard to have the stip club shut down.  If I were the police I’d have a close eye on this Moore character as well.

What I probably wouldn’t be doing is deploying sign ordinances to stifle legitimate political expression, even if it came from a low life.