Shop owner battles for big hot dog sign

ALLIANCE (AP) -- A dogfight is brewing in this northeast Ohio city over a restaurateur's proposed advertising.
Walton "Wally" Armour wants to install a 30-foot frank and bun on top of his Waaa Daa Hot Dog Shoppe, which he hopes to open by the end of May.
The city is suing the 65-year-old Armour and the Alliance Board of Zoning Appeals through an appeal filed last month in Stark County Common Pleas Court. The zoning board had approved allowing Armour to skirt the local ordinance banning rooftop advertising signs.
"Can you imagine the attention my restaurant would get if I had a big hot dog on the roof?" Armour asked. "If it was against the law for me to put something on the roof, they should have never allowed me to go before the board of zoning appeals."
Attorney Robert Hunter of the Alliance Law Department said the restaurant's two signs -- one on a pole in the parking lot and another on the side of the building -- are plenty.
"We don't think you need a pole sign, a wall sign and a roof sign," Hunter said. "We don't want to look like a Las Vegas. We don't want to look like a strip with nothing but signs."