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Photo by Hank Lohmeyer The AppleShed’s new variable message sign employs a very traditional advertising technique by giving customers more information about what the business has available. The practice has attracted new visitors, say the owners.The lighted, variable message sign newly installed at the AppleShed lit up the night on South Grand Mesa Drive. It also lit up some complaints about the device's brightness.

Nevertheless, even after dimming down the lights, AppleShed co-owner Dan Williams says the sign has been good for business.

Since installing the sign, "We have seen a fairly significant increase of people that we have never seen before," Williams told the town trustees on Feb. 21. When the new visitors were approached and asked about their reason for stopping at the business, "they say it is the signage."

Williams's comments came during the town board meeting as trustees questioned him about brightness complaints town hall had received. Williams agreed, saying he and his wife, Connie, had thought the lights were too bright, too, and they had received some complaints themselves at the business.

They had at first set the sign's brightness at the manufacturer's recommended level, but there were still complaints about it being "too bright at night."

They learned how to turn the brightness down using the computer controller. They turned it down by half, and then by half again. The current setting seems about right.

The other reason Williams was at the trustee meeting was to explain why the new sign had been installed without first getting a sign permit as required by a new sign code passed by the town board last year.

"I asked the building inspector," Williams explained, about any requirements for the sign. The building inspector replied, "Not to my knowledge." So, the sign went up without application or approval as required by the town's new signage law.

The incident was one of several recently where trustees said that actions by the town board and planning commission weren't being transmitted to the building inspector. That is because they are transmitted by e-mail, and the building inspector doesn't have e-mail, said Mayor Pat Means.

Trustees voted to "accept the application" for a permit to have the sign at the AppleShed.

The AppleShed's sign is the second variable message display that has gone up since the town's new sign code was adopted regulating the devices. The sign at Cedaredge Elementary School was installed also without a town permit because, explained Town Administrator Katie Sickles, the town has no right to regulate the sign on school property.

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