Addressing a Non-Issue

In what amounts to a waste of time, the Garden Grove Planning Commission on Thursday is again scheduled to consider an ordinance requiring signs containing non-English letters to specify in English the nature of the business.

The issue was kicked back to planners by the City Council. It should have been dropped instead. The ordinance, similar to one by Pomona that was struck down by a federal court, is also legally questionable. It has one other basic flaw. It is simply not needed.

Emergency personnel have no trouble locating addresses because all signs already include street numbers.

And most Asian-owned businesses recognize the need to add English to their signs to attract more customers and they have done so. The nine Korean businesses the city found with signs containing no English all agreed to add it. Why then make mandatory what the community has agreed to do voluntarily and make it appear that the force of law is needed when that is not the case at all?

Asian businesses are a valuable addition and their storefronts add a welcome flavor to the county scene. As long as a firm’s address is visible from the street, it is unnecessary and needlessly divisive to argue over how much English a sign ought to have. Or to pass a law to regulate it. That is best left to the business and its customers.