LAKELAND, Tenn — A City of Lakeland homeowner left Shelby County court with a win and nearly $1,000 worth of reimbursements on the way to her bank account, on May 1, 2024.
The city is settling with Julie Pereira who’s been battling fines for months over profane signs in her front yard.
The controversy started in December with a Christmas inflatable from the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The inflatable says “sh*****s full” on the side.
Neighbors complained to the city and eventually code enforcement cited her for violating the prohibited signs and devices’ ordinance. During the inspection, the city wrote “remove the sign displaying the cuss word or cover the word to where it cannot be viewed from the road and neighboring properties.”
However, her May 1 court appearance featured a completely different argument.
“I received a pretrial memorandum and an answer to my counterclaim from the city and they pivoted on their reason for violating me,” Pereira said. “For the first time ever, I heard the argument that it wasn’t about the language on the sign, but it was the fact that I had an inflatable yard decoration.”
Inflatables are not allowed under the city ordinance. However, this means several homeowners who have inflatables in their yards during the holidays would be in violation of the ordinance.
“There are like 150 something homes in this neighborhood and throughout all of the holiday seasons – Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, sometimes Fourth of July, for sure Halloween, [they have inflatable devices up},” Pereira said.
She said the city selectively cited her with no warning or citation for anyone else.
Pereira tells ABC24 that Shelby County Judge Felicia Corbin-Johnson hinted at this being a slippery slope and encouraged the city to settle with Pereira out of court. The city did.
“I asked the city to drop the violation – basically reverse it,” Pereira said. “Then just reimburse me for all my fees and fines and all of that which is probably close to about a thousand dollars right now.”
The fight isn’t over yet.
“There’s still the issue of the cuss word which is the first amendment violation which has to deal with the ordinance being unconstitutional,” Pereira said.
Pereira has an additional court date set for a political sign with the “f” word on her yard but she’s hopeful the city will settle before that hearing comes up. If the city does not settle before the next hearing, she plans to ask for additional fees to be reimbursed like parking and the time she’s had to take off work.
ABC24 reached out to the City of Lakeland for a comment on the situation and they did not respond.