Sidewalk Sign Prohibition is History

Brooklyn bars and restaurants rejoice: you can once again put your sandwich board signs on the sidewalk without fear of tickets from the Department of Sanitation! Your free and effective method for seducing customers with daily specials and clever jokes about drinking the pain away is now perfectly legal. Of course, this does not give you permission to lose all restraint and play music or let people dance.

Last fall a crackdown on the signs led to such establishments as Park Slope’s excellent Community Bookstore and Brooklyn Heights’ delicious Zaytoons getting slapped with tickets from the Department of Sanitation, who was acting on a rarely enforced law intended to keep the sidewalks clear. Brownstoner reports that Councilmember David Yassky leaned on Sanitation commissioner John Dougherty a few weeks ago and, lo and behold, Dougherty “agreed it was ridiculous.”

Now businesses are free to go nuts with the signs again, but on commercial streets only. And those who got hit by the crackdown will see their tickets dismissed, with everyone in Brooklyn living happily ever after in the promised land of free umbrellas and bar bocce.