For the purposes of this article, unless otherwise apparent from the context, certain words and phrases used in this article are defined as follows:
(a) “Advertising display” shall mean advertising structures and signs.
(b) “Advertising structure” shall mean a structure of any kind or character erected or maintained for outdoor advertising purposes on which any poster, bill, printing, painting, or other advertisement of any kind whatsoever may be placed, including statuary.
“Advertising structure” shall not include:
(1) Official notices issued by a court or public body or officer;
(2) Notices posted by any public officer in the performance of a public duty or by any person in giving legal notice; and
(3) Directional, warning, or information signs or structures required or authorized by law or by Federal, State, or municipal authority.
(c) “Freeway” shall mean a highway in respect to which the owners of abutting lands have no right or easement of access to or from their abutting lands or in respect to which such owners have only limited or restricted right or easement of access and which is declared to be such in compliance with the Streets and Highways Code of the State.
(d) “Landscaped freeway” shall mean a section of a freeway which is now improved by the planting, at least on one side of the freeway right-of-way, of lawns, trees, shrubs, flowers, or other ornamental vegetation which shall require reasonable maintenance, or a section of freeway which has been designated by the State as a landscaped freeway.
Planting for the purpose of soil erosion control, traffic safety requirements, reduction of fire hazards, or traffic noise abatement shall not change the character of a freeway to a landscaped freeway.
(e) “Sign” shall mean any card, cloth, metal, painted, or wooden sign of any character placed for outdoor advertising purposes on or to the ground or any tree, wall, bush, rock, fence, building, structure, or thing, either publicly or privately owned, other than an advertising structure.
“Sign” shall not include:
(1) Official notices issued by a court or public body or officer;
(2) Notices posted by any public officer in the performance of a public duty or by any person in giving legal notice; and
(3) Directional, warning, or information signs or structures required or authorized by law or by Federal, State or municipal authority.
(f) The verb “to place” and any of its variants, as applied to advertising displays, shall include the maintaining and erecting, constructing, posting, painting, printing, tacking, nailing, gluing, stitching, carving, or otherwise fastening, affixing, or making visible any advertising display on or to the ground or any tree, bush, rock, fence, post, wall, building, structure or thing.
(§ 1, Ord. 19, as amended by Ord. 185)