PHILADELPHIA — Sybil Peachlum has been fighting York City Hall for a decade over a lawn sign with an anthropomorphized peach holding a newspaper with the headline, “Peachy News. Jesus is Alive.”
One of the highest courts in the land says she has a case.
The city says the 3 ½-foot by 5-foot sign, which was, until recently, planted in Peachlum’s front yard, violates zoning rules. Peachlum says the ban violates her right to free speech.
A lower court had dismissed her lawsuit seeking to keep the sign, but the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it June 19, declaring that after years of languishing before a city appeals board, her case deserves to be decided by a judge.
“Peachlum’s claim,” the three-judge panel wrote, “is clearly ripe.”
The ruling clears the way for a federal judge to decide soon whether Peachlum, who has been a frequent thorn in the side of city officials, gets to put the cheerful evangelical display back up. It was taken down recently when she was evicted and is now in storage at her sister’s house, also in York.
The sign made its first appearance as a holiday decoration, then was anchored with cement in 1994. It didn’t take long for some neighbors to decide that the big peach, illuminated by neon lamps, was too tacky for the block.
Officials repeatedly asked Peachlum to take it down, citing a city code that prohibits most types of lawn signs without a permit.
Peachlum appealed to York’s Zoning Board of Appeals, but said she couldn’t afford the $350 filing fee. Without the fee, the city has refused to hear the case and has been assessing her regular fines instead.
Peachlum, who has also challenged the city’s leash law and its time limit on speeches at public meetings and has sued the city for demolishing a decrepit garage she owned, took the matter to federal court in 1999.
Attorney Erik Stanley of the religious freedom group Liberty Counsel said that while cities have a right to regulate signs, the display erected by his client is protected by the First Amendment.
“The neon only gets turned on at Christmas and Easter,” Stanley said. “It’s not a glaring eyesore. ... It’s her way of reaching out to her neighbors with a message she wants to communicate. It’s no different than hanging an American flag on your property.”
The 3rd Circuit panel declined to rule on the central issue of the case last week, saying its immediate role was only to decide whether Peachlum had made enough effort to get her case resolved through administrative channels before going to court.
A federal judge conducted a trial in 2000, but declined to decide the sign’s legality after ruling that Peachlum hadn’t exhausted her city appeals. The 3rd Circuit overruled, saying Peachlum, whom Stanley described as “very poor, and living paycheck to paycheck” couldn’t afford the $350 the city required to reconsider her case.
Liberty Counsel is representing her for free.
Attempts to contact Peachlum through her lawyer were unsuccessful. Calls to York’s mayor, John S. Brenner, and to the city’s attorney, Donald B. Hoyt, were not immediately returned.