Chris Kilbane, owner of downtown mainstay New Canaan Toy Store, first placed a sandwich board outside his Park Street shop after earning “Best Toy Store” honors from Moffly Media.
The main idea, Kilbane told town planning officials Tuesday night, was to promote the Best of the Gold Coast designation. What he quickly discovered, however, was that the sandwich board helped steer foot traffic into New Canaan Toy Store—something that’s become increasingly important and more difficult for mom-and-pop retailers.
“It seems so small, but the impact is staggering,” Kilbane told the Planning & Zoning Commission at the group’s regular meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center.
“You have to understand how it is to run a business in New Canaan at this point, or any brick and mortar store. The Internet is a couple trillion dollars. I can guarantee you retail sales have not gone up by a trillion dollars. So the Internet has basically stolen a trillion dollars from brick-and-mortar stores. So that’s fine, but your cost side has not change. So it is a really tight environment, and any time you can get somebody walking down the street to notice a sign and say, ‘Oh, you know what, I need to go in and get’—in this case, a toy, rather than go on Amazon, to go into our store. That filters back: The better we do, the more we support the local organizations around town and everybody else. And I know lots of chain stores and stuff really don’t care, but we do.”
Seeking information and feedback on sandwich boards, which can be seen in various sizes and styles downtown though they’re explicitly forbidden by New Canaan Zoning Regulations, P&Z has opened the matter for discussion. Business leaders say they’re trying to find a workable solution with respect to sandwich boards—for example, a specific allowance that details size, style and use of the signs that is still acceptable and in line with New Canaan’s carefully cultivated and closely guarded taste and aesthetic.
Hearing from Kilbane and others who say sandwich boards have been important to their businesses, commissioner Laszlo Papp said that though it’s “vital” to support merchants “100 percent,” he is “not 100 percent” certain about sandwich boards specifically. The A-frame signs are unregulated, sometimes create an obstacle for pedestrians and for some have been a problem aesthetically, Papp said.
Addressing Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Tucker Murphy directly, he said: “I think the right way to approach this—like every other application—you or the chamber should come to terms with this issue and bring to us a reasonable proposal as an application, and then we can respond or refine it or deal with it,” Papp said.
Commissioners raised the prospect of someone tripping on a sandwich board and hurting themselves, creating a liability issue for the town, since the signs most often are located on town property (sidewalks). They also suggested that sandwich boards that are obstructions on the sidewalks may run afoul of ADA.
Commissioner Elizabeth DeLuca, who chairs a committee of P&Z that oversees signs specifically, asked how a free-for-all allowance on sandwich boards would help anyone because there would be so many, no one shop would stand out from any other.
Murphy agreed, and wondered whether a possible future ordinance could stagger allowances and designate specific sections of town for specific days. As an example, she cited New Balance New Canaan on Main Street, a store that’s open on Sundays where many are not, and puts a sandwich board out front to inform passersby of the fact.
To suggestions that restaurants essentially use the sidewalk to promote their businesses by setting up tables and chairs that likewise create obstructions for passing pedestrians, Commissioner Dan Radman said that’s a “different story” because “outdoor dining areas have a defined barrier” that’s “in compliance with a visible, even ADA-compliant two-way walking path.”
Radman added that the sandwich boards are low to the ground and present a real tripping danger to increasingly distracted, cellphone-toting pedestrians.
“They call it ‘window shopping’ for a reason: You are not looking down at a sandwich board you are looking at what is on offer in the windows,” Radman said.
Murphy said she was thankful to have started an open, two-way dialogue with P&Z and urged the commission to pursue a model that “we could all live with.” Asked for feedback on sandwich boards among merchants, Murphy said it overwhelmingly has been positive. One exception is a downtown merchant who has a second-floor shop and is strongly opposed to sandwich boards, Murphy said. However, there likely is not a solution that 100 percent pleases everyone, she said—a point that may be illustrated by the fact that the same objecting merchant perhaps incongruously displays retail merchandise on an open ground-floor door.
“If there are any ways we could continue the conversation in a way that made sense for us to potentially come up with something we could all live with—and without moving it too far forward, but maybe something on a very limited basis or uniform basis or at certain times,” Murphy said.
“I don’t want to presume that I know what the answer is, but I would hate to have—now that we have started a conversation— to say, ‘These other towns don’t really do it, so we feel strongly that we shouldn’t,’ and not have this conversation in a little more strategic fashion.”
Murphy added that the Zoning Regulations apply not just to businesses but also organizations such as schools promoting performances, churches notifying passersby of programs, the firehouse promoting an open house and other groups. “So we are going to have to be to be a little careful when it comes to enforcement, if that is what it comes down to in how we deal with this,” she said.
Anna Krolikowski addressed P&Z, saying that she’s a “big believer in sandwich boards” after nearly 23 years as owner of Baskin-Robbins on Main Street.
Krolikowski said pedestrians seeing a sign about a “buy one, get one free” Tuesday or Easter Cake or new flavor will “open the door and ask about it.”
“It does bring people in,” she said.
Krolikowski added that she personally washes the sidewalk and area in front of Baskin-Robbins each morning and as a native of New Canaan, cares a lot about how the town looks.
“I understand if we are going to do this, there have to be rules,” she sai. “We want to work together, not against you. Whatever we can do together would be great, but it does help our businesses. It helps us pay the rent.”