Giant Billboards on Vacant Hotel in Miami Must Come Down, Court Says

Giant Billboards on Vacant Hotel in Miami Must Come Down, Court Says
By Andres Viglucci
 
An appeals court, handing Miami-Dade County a victory in a long legal battle, says billboards on a vacant hotel building alongside Interstate 95 -- which include a banner for county mayoral candidate Julio Robaina -- must come down.

Agreeing with Miami-Dade County, an appeals court has ruled that billboards covering the vacant City Inn, which sits along Interstate 95, are illegal and must come down. A banner for county mayoral candidate Julio Robaina occupies the rooftop above the Landshark Lager ad.

For years, a vacant 10-story hotel along Interstate 95 has served -- in blatantly illegal fashion, according to the state of Florida and Miami-Dade County -- as a colossal billboard, draped top-to-bottom with banners promoting beer, Caribbean tourism and, in recent weeks, county mayoral candidate Julio Robaina.

But the City Inn hotel’s owner, Malibu Lodging Investments, has repeatedly fought off orders to take the signs down, instead waging a protracted legal battle while continuing to make money from the billboards.

Now an appeals court has handed the county a clear-cut victory that may put an end to the legal fracas, ruling that the signs must come down.

The decision by a three-judge panel of the Third District Court of Appeal, issued Wednesday, also represents a boost for billboard opponents mustering a campaign to stop the proliferation of ads along the city’s expressways.

The ruling upheld the constitutionality of the county’s sign ordinance, which for decades has sharply restricted the number and type of billboards along expressways, and reaffirmed its powers to regulate outdoor ads to protect public safety and aesthetics. A lower court judge, Circuit Judge Maxine Cohen Lando, had ruled that sections of the sign code -- which applies in all Miami-Dade municipalities as well as unincorporated areas -- were unconstitutional.

The building, a Holiday Inn before operating for years as a discount, no-brand hotel, sits on the west side of I-95 at Northwest 82nd Street and has long been vacant. Experts say billboards at such locations are remunerative because of the tens of thousands of motorists who drive by every day.