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Paul St. Clair is the newest name on a long list of folks who’ve made a laughing stock of Rappahannock’s sign ordinances. He’s done the best job yet, effectively tying the county’s hands while he thumbs his nose at local laws.
On November 13, the Rappahannock Board of Zoning Appeals denied St. Clair’s request for a special use permit to put up a sign advertising his Black Kettle Restaurant. He wanted to erect the sign on Route 211 just past Washington at Greenfield Farm. The BZA unanimously denied his application.
If St. Clair had learned his zoning lessons, he would have gone on ahead, put up his sign and then asked permission. Buildings and an occasional sign appear almost magically like that all the time around here. It’s the Rappahannock way—do first and then ask.
But St. Clair asked first and when he was told no, he went on ahead anyway, really rubbing the county’s nose in its own laws. He was smart. First of all, he didn’t build the sign on the location stipulated in his special use permit request because not only would he need county permission, he would need approval from the Virginia Department of Highways and Transportation. The county might look the other way at flagrant abuse of its ordinances but the highway department means business with its regulations.
Secondly, St. Clair put his sign on the outskirts of a vertible jungle of illegal signs erected by Gibson Wharton as advertising for what passes as a
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