Billboard ignites fury, and Quincy blames state

Thomas Maloney's view from his office is dominated by the billboard. (Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff)

Quincy is going to court to seek the removal of an 80-foot-high billboard along the Southeast Expressway that infuriates West Quincy neighbors, even though a city panel granted a permit for the billboard a year ago.

The city is challenging the sign's approval by a state agency, saying the state didn't follow its own rules.

The city's suit isn't the only action against the big, brightly lit sign. Thomas Maloney, a neighborhood business owner, appealed the city's permit and expects his challenge will end up before a judge.

Maloney, who sees the billboard from his third floor office window on Copeland Street, said neighbors on his street and nearby Crescent Street live with a view dominated by the billboard.

"It doesn't belong" in a residential neighborhood, he said. "It's so out of place."

The double illuminated signboard, 48 feet wide by 14 feet high, is on a pole planted at the foot of Biondi's Service Center on Willard Street. The sign is highly visible from the nearby Expressway - an ideal location, from an advertiser's point of view - but it also looms over a neighborhood with many homes.

The billboard advertises a vodka brand on one side (an added irritant to some residents, who point to its visibility from an elementary school) and a cruise line to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard on the other.

The attorney for Boston Outdoor Ventures (which took over the billboard's lease from Media Vision) said Tuesday that his client had no comment.

When the billboard was erected in May, officials responded to a local outcry by investigating how an 80-foot-high billboard received both local and state permits despite regulatory restrictions, why some abutters failed to receive notification of an important zoning hearing, whether the city has any recourse, and how to prevent something similar from happening again.

After neighbors packed a City Council hearing last month, councilors called for the sign's removal, and the mayor assigned the city's chief lawyer to find relief for residents who said they felt betrayed by a regulatory process that failed to protect their interest.

Some locals sought to organize a boycott of the gas station on which the sign is located, and city officials were quick to side with the residents.

City solicitor Jim Timmins said Monday that the state's Outdoor Advertising Board rejected his request to overturn its approval of the sign last Friday. As a result, the city is moving ahead with legal action in Norfolk Superior Court. Timmins said a computer error was to blame for abutters not being notified about a hearing on the billboard.