The saga of Maine-ly Pawn's outdoor storage will continue.

The Damariscotta Planing Board again met Monday, Sept. 14 with Maine-ly Pawn owner Mark Hoffman to decide whether or not the business would be granted a conditional use permit to continue selling items outside and again the matter was deemed incomplete. The planning board voted down Hoffman's application 5-0 and again said it was incomplete, but Hoffman made mention of continuing to sell items outside.

Board member Jonathan Eaton asked Hoffman what he had planned to do about screening, which is required.

“I'm not proposing any screening,” Hoffman said.

The plan that Hoffman sketched also didn't have any distances labeled on it, which led the planning board to declare it incomplete.

Hoffman made reference to putting up a tent that would shelter the outdoor goods. At his previous location near Hannaford's Supermarket, he eventually set up a tent where he housed goods, which satisfied the conditional use permit he was granted by the planning board.

The two sides met Monday, Aug. 31, and decided to allow Hoffman an additional two weeks to fill out the needed paperwork and to alert the other abutters within 500 feet.

Hoffman came Monday, Sept. 14, with a handful of receipts showing that he had sent out notices to the missing abutters and left after the selectmen voted the application incomplete.

The town and Hoffman have been at odds over Maine-ly Pawn's unsanctioned outdoor storage area. Hoffman said that for his business to survive he needs to have some goods set up outside the store to attract motorists and potential shoppers. The town has sent Hoffman a letter from its lawyer asking him to apply for a conditional use permit.

Hoffman said at the Aug. 31 meeting and during an earlier phone interview that he felt the town was unfairly targeting him and his business. He asked why some businesses were allowed to keep their wares outside and not behind a fence, to which Code Enforcement Officer Stanley Waltz said that any business, such as Hammond Lumber, that had outdoor storage and sales in 1998 and before had been grandfathered-in.

Eaton told Hoffman at the Aug. 31 meeting that businesses could be clever with the site plans, and implored Hoffman to be creative with a solution.

In the application submitted to the board on Sept. 14, Hoffman wrote in the project description box that he filled it out because he was required to “continue our business as usual.”

The planning board will meet again in October, but Eaton said he didn't expect to see Hoffman in attendance.

“Now it's not a big deal, but in time it might be,” Eaton said.

I saw the sign ... for now

There are signs signs are about to change in Damariscotta.

The planning board asked the board of selectmen to approve a moratorium on all new signs in Damariscotta pending a new sign ordinance.

The selectmen met Wednesday, Sept. 16.

The moratorium will give the planning board time to draft an ordinance that regulates, among other things, how signs can be lit, where they can be placed and what types of signs are allowable.

“I could go out and buy 50 sandwich board signs and put them all over town,” Eaton said. “There's nothing (in the existing ordinances) that regulates the size, or how many you can have or where they go.”

The town looked at the sign ordinance from Camden on Monday, Sept. 14 for inspiration. Town planner Anthony Dater said the process will spread out into different agencies such as shoreland zoning and the comprehensive plan, but that the Camden ordinance was a good template to look at in the interim.

“We looked at several other towns, and the Camden ordinance is a model we started with,” he said. “The planning board thought that it was the right time to produce a standalone (ordinance). Now's when we discuss what we like, what we don't like.”

There have been complaints about the sandwich boards that line Main Street, with attention being focused on boards that are for businesses that aren't physically on Main Street.

Eaton said there needs to be something in place to regulate what, and where, signs can be displayed.

“What we have now is really rudimentary,” he said. “There needs to be some control at the town level.”

If the selectmen approve a moratorium it would block any business from erecting a new sign in town for up to a year. During that time period, the town will come up with an ordinance to regulate all signs.