CASSELBERRY, Fla. — The city of Casselberry has already banned so-called "sign spinners" who try to draw you into businesses. Now, one business owner is using news signs to protest the ban.
Sign-holders lining 17-92 are hardly what the city of Casselberry could've expected when it banned human sign-spinners recently. Then again, the city probably wasn't expecting Cash 4 Gold owner Lei Keene either.
"I will fight it legally. I want to do everything I can. I need to stay in business. Those people need to work," Keene said.
"I got five kids at home. This is the only job I have right now to keep myself going," Cash 4 Gold employee Laron Colberg said.
Colberg is one employee facing unemployment because of the ban. As soon as it took effect, Keene put away big Cash 4 Gold advertising signs, but she paid the same employees to carry new signs, saying things like, "The city of Casselberry discriminates."
That's when the city told Keene that her protest signs, which she saw simply as freedom of speech, were also a violation, on their own, simply because they said the business' name right across the bottom.
"The city of Casselberry is definitely violating our First Amendment rights and they're borderline harassing us at this point," Keene said.
The ACLU said Tuesday that the city's own ordinance actually protects political speech, so the fines would've been contradictory and now Casselberry is backing down, agreeing that the protest signs are legal and that Keene won't be fined $250 dollars a day.
But the original ban still stands, meaning the $10 an hour jobs are still in question.
Casselberry leaders told WFTV they voted to ban people from carrying signs because they were a distraction to drivers, but the city could not say whether any wrecks had been caused by the signs.
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