Digital billboards have become a hotly debated topic in the Puget Sound area.  In August, the City of Tacoma voted to revise their sign code and prohibit digital billboards, including a new type of display that sequences still images in a "slide show" style.  Tacoma’s ban on digital billboards has already triggered litigation between the City and Clear Channel concerning the validity of a prior settlement deal that would have allowed a handful of digital billboards in the City.   

Meanwhile, King County is currently considering a proposal to allow digital signage in many unincorporated areas of the County.  The King County Council is weighing the benefits of emergency messages that can be quickly displayed on digital billboards against competing arguments surrounding driver safety and aesthetics.  The Council was anticipated to vote favorably on the proposal this week, but instead deferred the issue to late October. 

The digital billboard controversy raises a number of interesting legal issues, pitting the authority of local government to ban or regulate digital billboards against free speech protections and property rights.  Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s seminal ruling in Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, 453 U.S. 590 (1981), the general rule has been that local government’s interest in traffic safety and community aesthetics may justify a ban on billboards without coming afoul of the First Amendment. 

In practice, the issue is more complicated when local government regulates certain types of messaging on digital billboards, skirting the Constitutional line of favoring certain types of commercial or noncommercial speech over others.  Another complication arises when the local zoning code fails to address electronic messaging and a billboard owner applies to convert to a digital billboard.  This could open the door to arguments about vested rights, nonconforming uses, and whether digital billboards constitute a nuisance.

While these issues have not yet been litigated in Washington, stay tuned, as the Tacoma-Clear Channel litigation appears headed toward federal court.