Street signage

[BONeal]

My husband and I opened a franchise in a new strip mall last July. At the time we requested that our store logo be placed on the main street sign and were told no one occupying under 5,000 sq ft would be allowed to acquire that space. At the time, we thought that wouldn't be a problem because we were advertising in other ways. Two weeks ago an article appeared in the Sunday paper stating how that particular area has the second busiest intersection in the city, with 44,000 cars going through daily. Presently, we are averaging around 47 customers a day, and have had to come out our pockets $20,000 since March of this year to stay afloat. Outside of hiring an attorney, which we can't afford, what can we do to force the landlord to include us on the street sign? I have read our lease and there is nothing there restricting our presence on the sign. I am prepared to write a demand letter to the landlord, but want to have the correct wording to get my point across. We need the recognition, so the public will know we're there, without that the landlord is causing our eviction. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Tracey]

Does the sign belong to L or to the tenants? If L owns it and only gives free advertising to tenants with big stores, that's L's choice. Ask L for a copy of the policy stating that only 5,000 sq ft business get sign space.

You might point out to L that your business is having difficulty getting established & customers are having trouble finding you. This is causing you to lose $$ & may force you to break the lease. If you do have to break the lease, you will argue that L acted in bad faith by leaving sign spots empty (there'd better be some empty spots) when L had been told that putting your logo on the sign was necessary to your business. L might agree for 2 reasons -- strip mall owners don't like to have a string of failed businesses, & a judge might not let L recover full damages.

If none of those arguments work, your other option is to move to a 5000 sq ft space.

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This is not legal advice and you are not my client. Double check everything with your own attorney and your state's laws.