SOMERS POINT — City Council met in executive session Jan. 11 to discuss a complaint against the Zoning Board for denying an application to erect a 45-foot-tall billboard at a busy intersection.
Garden State Outdoor LLC accuses the Zoning Board of wrongly denying a use variance and other relief sought to allow the digital billboard between Somers Point Diner and Diorio’s Circle Cafe near the four-way intersection of MacArthur Boulevard, Shore Road, Route 52 and Somers Point-Mays Landing Road.
The suit states Garden State has a lease to erect the billboard at 8 MacArthur Blvd., site of the diner owned by the Exadaktilos family.
On Dec. 14, John Exadaktilos, son of the owners and a restaurateur himself, accused City Councilman Sean McGuigan of trying to strong-arm him into giving up plans for the billboard.
Exadaktilos alleged McGuigan committed official misconduct by threatening to take parking spaces away from the restaurant if he did not forego his plans.
City Council also was to discuss anticipated litigation involving a tort claims notice served on the city by Garden State Outdoor on Dec. 14, 2023.
Garden State applied to the Zoning Board on Oct. 25, 2022. The application requested a use variance, height variance and bulk variance relief.
The complaint also alleges the city has an “unconstitutional ban” on billboards, stating the city cannot limit content. The suit states the billboard would be for all forms of content and not solely commercial and that Somers Point’s zoning ordinance limits advertising to the business or use on the property. It claims content-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.
Somers Point argues that a secondary business on the property is barred by municipal ordinance and that the city’s sign ordinance is not content-based discrimination because it is narrowly tailored so as not to be so.
In addition, the city argues digital billboards of the size requested are “an intrusive invasion upon the landscape” as well as its “promotion of a desirable visual environment and retention of the character of the community.”
The next court date, a petition hearing, is scheduled for Feb. 15 before Judge Dean R. Marcolongo.
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff