The City of Salem’s sign department, tasked with ensuring public safety and maintaining the “neat, clean, orderly, and attractive appearance of the community,” has become a pressure point for a growing number of frustrated local business owners. The department reviews and approves signage, educates the public on a complicated sign code, and investigates violations. But for some entrepreneurs, a ramp-up in enforcement has felt less like civic improvement and more like a costly, confusing grind that punishes small operators for minor or long-standing issues.
For years, Salem went without a dedicated sign code enforcer. About two years ago, the city hired one to cover enforcement citywide, responding to complaints and conducting inspections on a geographic rotation. The city’s stated approach is that compliance begins with outreach and education, and that most businesses voluntarily comply. City staff have also said they are now addressing signs that have “always been non-compliant.”
Business owners who have been caught up in the enforcement push describe a different reality: what starts as a question about a sign can spiral into shifting interpretations, repeated permit demands, and costs that snowball into the thousands — all while the rules themselves can feel hard to parse even for experienced operators.
The Salem Sign Ordinance Worksheet, a guide for common business signs, lays out layers of regulations for freestanding, wall, blade, awning, and window signs, with allowances that can change based on zoning, lot frontage, and even the distance of a building from the street. Permits are generally required, and modifications to an approved sign may trigger a new permit. That complexity, business owners say, becomes far more punishing when enforcement shifts from sporadic to active.
Shari Shaw, co-owner of Torque Automotive Industries, a hybrid-specialist auto shop formerly on Capitol St. NE, has become a central voice in that frustration. Shaw and her husband, Hai Nguyen, previously said they invested heavily in renovating a long-vacant, dilapidated building and turning it into a functioning business. “We have had countless neighborhood folks come to our shop and thank us for cleaning up the building, lot and ultimately the neighborhood,” Shaw said.
Shaw has also said her dealings with the sign department began with what she believed was careful, proactive compliance. Before opening in June 2024, she said she consulted city planners and believed certain updates — like changing inserts on an existing pole sign or re-vinyling an awning that had a prior permit — would not require new permits, based on communications with city staff and her reading of code sections on replaceable copy and normal maintenance.
After several months, Shaw said the city began alleging multiple violations and unpermitted signs, launching what she described as a prolonged dispute over items that included seasonal displays, window signage, flags, and the awning. Shaw has claimed the city’s demands shifted over time and that pressure escalated through warnings of compounding penalties.
On Jan. 12, 2026, Shaw brought that dispute directly to the Salem City Council during public comment, telling councilors that Salem’s sign code and permitting process had real-world consequences for small businesses — including her own.
“It is so hard to be a business owner in this community and to feel like you’re constantly being under attack from the city, specifically with the sign code,” Shaw told councilors. She said she appreciated comments made that night about reviewing how Salem works with business owners, but urged the city to include business owners directly in any discussion because, in her view, internal reports do not reflect what affected owners experience.
Shaw told councilors she faced “thousands of thousands of dollars worth of fees” and said she took her case to a hearing. At that hearing, she said, the city offered a settlement that would stop fines and fees if she applied for another permit. Shaw said she agreed not because she believed she was wrong, but because continuing to fight was financially impossible.
“It was as a small business, I had to choose if I was gonna keep paying fees and fines and attorney fees or if I was going to keep my kid in daycare in preschool,” Shaw said.
Councilor Brown asked Shaw to share how much she had spent. “Thousands,” Shaw responded, describing attorney costs and what she said were escalating fines that compounded over time. Shaw also told councilors she later learned the settlement was portrayed internally as though she “knew” she was in the wrong. “Which is not true,” she said. “It’s not true at all.”
In the sharpest update, Shaw told the council her business has now moved. She said Torque Automotive was forced to relocate from Ward 1 to Ward 2 within the prior two weeks, and she blamed the broader situation — including strain placed on her landlord relationship — as part of what pushed the move.
“I have moved my business. I was forced to move my business,” Shaw said, adding that her previous landlord did not want to be “blackballed by association.”
Now, Shaw told councilors, she is operating her business in South Salem without signage at all — not as a marketing choice, but out of fear of re-entering the permitting process.
“My business in South Salem has no signs. None,” Shaw said. “Because I am terrified to sign up for a sign permit and go through that process again.”
Shaw’s account has resonated with other small business owners who say sign enforcement has become unpredictable and financially risky, especially when penalties, permit fees, and professional costs pile up quickly. For critics, the central issue is not whether Salem should have a sign code, but whether the city’s approach is consistent, proportional, and transparent — and whether it can enforce standards without leaving business owners afraid to put their name on the building.
