Gen'l Auto Service v. City of Chicago

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

____________

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

G ENERAL A UTO SERVICE STATION, et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

C ITY OF C HICAGO,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division

No. 00 C 368—Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, Judge.

____________

A RGUED JUNE 4, 2007—D ECIDED M AY 16, 2008

____________

Before R IPPLE, R OVNER, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

R OVNER, Circuit Judge. The plaintiffs-appellants are the

owners and the agent of a building in Chicago that for

more than four decades has displayed an advertising

sign without a permit. Current zoning provisions prohibit

the sign given its size and proximity to a residential

district, but the plaintiffs contend that because the sign

was lawful when first erected, they have a right to continue

displaying the sign. After the City of Chicago declared the

sign unlawful and ordered it removed, the plaintiffs-

appellants filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 challenging the

2 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

City’s action on a variety of constitutional grounds. The

district court resolved the suit in the City’s favor. We

affirm.

I.

Bernard A. Heerey purchased the building located at

1127-33 North State Street in Chicago in 1961. Pursuant to

a 1984 trust agreement, Cosmopolitan Bank and Trust

now holds legal title to the property. Heerey assigned

his beneficial interest in the property to General Auto

Service Station,1 an Illinois corporation which in 1998

merged with and into General Auto Service Station LLC

(collectively, “GASS”). F.A.Y. Properties, Inc. (“F.A.Y.”) is

an Illinois corporation that acts as an agent and lessor for

GASS. Heerey was the sole owner of both GASS and F.A.Y.

Heerey died in 1999 at the age of 79 without immediate

family to survive him. The terms of his will provide that

once certain bequests are made, the assets in his estate,

which include a number of properties on Chicago’s north

side, are to be placed in a charitable trust in order to

fund distributions to religious and charitable organiza-

tions. As of the date this case was tried in December 2004,

the probate of Heerey’s estate was ongoing and the trust

had not yet been funded.

The south exterior wall of the building at 1127-33 North

State Street is a desirable location for advertising. The

1

The name of the corporation was a holdover from a time

when Heerey and his parents owned an automobile parts

business on Chicago’s north side. Heerey closed that business in

the 1960s.

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 3

building is four stories tall, and soon after Heerey pur-

chased the property, the buildings to its immediate south

were torn down, eventually to be replaced by a one-story

building. As a result, the exposed south wall of the build-

ing at 1127-33 North State is visible to motorists and

pedestrians passing through the nearby intersection of

North Rush and State Streets, in the heart of Chicago’s

Gold Coast.

In 1962, Heerey, without first seeking or obtaining a

permit from the City, had an advertising sign painted on

the south wall of the building. That wall has been con-

tinuously used for advertising since that time. In the

ensuing years, Heerey and later GASS, through F.A.Y.,

leased the advertising space on the building to a variety of

entities, including Whiteco Industries, Inc., whose suc-

cessor, Lamar Advertising Company, holds the current

lease. We shall refer to these lessees collectively as

“Whiteco.” For the one-year period ending July 14, 2008,

GASS is being paid $99,074.48 for the lease of the sign.

When Heerey first began using the side of his building

for advertising in 1962, section 86.1-4 of the City’s electrical

code provided in relevant part that “[i]t shall be unlaw-

ful to proceed with the erection, enlargement, alteration

or rehang of any illuminated sign or illumination of

signboard unless a permit therefore shall have first been

obtained from the Commissioner of Buildings.” The dis-

trict court understood this language to require a permit

only for an illuminated sign. Because the original sign on

Heerey’s building was not illuminated, the court con-

cluded that no permit was required. R. 126 at 16. The City

accepts that ruling for purposes of this appeal, as do we.

At all times relevant to this suit, the property at 1127-33

North State Street has been located within a district zoned

4 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

by the City for business use. However, the sign on the

south wall of the building has always been within 75 feet

of a district zoned for residential use.

As of 1962, section 8.9(5) of the City’s zoning ordinance

prohibited advertising signs “within 75 feet of any prop-

erty in a Residence District.” The district court took the

phrase “any property” in this provision to mean any

improved property. Although the sign on Heerey’s build-

ing is within 75 feet of a residential district, when first

erected it was not within 75 feet of any improved prop-

erty in such a district. Consequently, the court assumed

that the sign was lawful when first painted on Heerey’s

building. R. 126 at 15. Although the City contested this

point below, it has not quarreled with the district court’s

assumption for purposes of this appeal. Consequently,

we like the district court shall assume that the sign was

lawful when first erected.

In subsequent years, however, Heerey made two

changes vis-à-vis the advertising on his building for

which a permit was indubitably required under the then-

governing terms of the City’s electrical code. First, at some

point between 1962 and 1969, Heerey illuminated the sign

by installing lights near the roof line of his building.

Section 86.1-4 of the code, which we quoted from above,

required that a permit be issued by the Commissioner of

Buildings for, among other things, the “erection” of an

illuminated sign and the “illumination of signboard.”

Second, between 1975 and 1979, Heerey allowed the lessee

of the advertising space on his building to combine what

had been two signs into a larger, single sign by covering

the building windows that had separated the two signs.

Then, in 1979, that sign was enlarged to its current dimen-

sions of 26 feet by 59 feet. These changes again triggered

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 5

the permit requirement of section 86.1-4, which applied to

any “enlargement” or “alteration” made to “any illumi-

nated sign.” The district court thus concluded that Heerey

was required to obtain a permit before illuminating and

enlarging the signage on his building. R. 126 at 16-17. So

far as the record reveals, Heerey did not obtain a per-

mit before he made any of these modifications.2

In 1986, the City finally took notice that the sign lacked

a permit. On September 3 of that year, it issued a viola-

tion notice to Heerey’s property management company

asserting that the illuminated sign had been installed

without a permit in violation of section 86.1 of the

electrical code. App. 193. A hearing before the City’s

electrical compliance board was scheduled and continued

on several occasions, but the City took no further action

on the 1986 notice.

In 1990, the provision of the City’s zoning ordinance

regarding the distance between advertising signs and

residential districts was toughened. Whereas before,

section 8.9(5) of the ordinance (as construed by the dis-

trict court) permitted no advertising sign within 75 feet

of improved property in a residential district, section 8.9(7)

of the revised ordinance now provided that “[n]o adver-

tising sign having a face which exceeds 100 square feet

shall be permitted within 250 feet of a Residence District”

and that “no advertising sign” of any size “shall be permit-

ted within 75 feet of a Residence District.” App. 237. A

“grandfather” provision, section 6.7-1(a), was added to the

2

Although GASS’s counsel indicated at trial that the plaintiffs

believed Heerey did obtain a permit for illumination of the

sign, he conceded that GASS had been unable to locate any

such permit. R. 166 at 15, 23.

6 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

ordinance providing that any sign not conforming to the

new distance requirements (among others) which had

been “lawfully erected pursuant to a permit lawfully

issued prior to the effective date of this section, may

remain in use as a legal non-conforming sign.” App. 227.3

On September 29, 1994, the City issued a second viola-

tion notice to Heerey, this one charging that because the

face of the sign was larger than 100 square feet and was

within 250 feet of a residential district, the sign violated

the distance requirement adopted in 1990. App. 113.

Heerey’s attorney forwarded the notice to Whiteco and

asked that it handle the matter. Whiteco in turn sub-

mitted a permit application to the City. App. 113A. That

application was approved initially by the City’s zoning

department on January 12, 1995. Zoning employee William

Merritt determined that the sign was a “legal non-con-

forming” use, and he therefore stamped the permit ap-

plication to indicate that the sign “conforms to zoning

ordinance.” App. 107 ¶ 36, App. 113B. At that point, the

approval of the City’s building department was required,

and Whiteco submitted its permit application to that

department for review. However, for any sign that ex-

3

In 2004, the City eliminated the distinction for grand-

fathering purposes between permitted and non-permitted

signs. Section 6.7-1(a) was repealed and replaced by two new

provisions, found at sections 17-15-0502 and 17-15-0503 of

Chicago’s Municipal Ordinance, which collectively permit a

non-conforming sign to remain in use so long as the sign

complied with the zoning and sign regulations in effect at the

time the sign was established. As it is section 6.7-1(a) that is

relevant for purposes of GASS’s appeal, we shall refer exclu-

sively to this section and speak of it in the present tense,

although it has since been superseded.

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 7

ceeded 100 square feet in size, the municipal code re-

quired City Council approval in addition to a permit. App.

285. On April 19, 1995, the building department noted

on a “plan correction sheet” issued to Whiteco that a

copy of the Council’s order approving the sign “must be

attached to the permit application.” App. 208. Whiteco

had written to the City alderman whose ward included

the State Street property one week earlier requesting

his support and assistance in obtaining such approval.

But for reasons that the record does not reveal, Whiteco

never obtained an order from the City Council approving

the sign. For its part, the City took no further action on

Whiteco’s 1994 permit application.

On August 22, 1997, the City issued a third notice of

violation to Heerey’s property management company

directing Heerey to “[o]btain permit for outdoor flat

building sign installed without permit.” App. 108 ¶ 40;

App. 116. Heerey’s attorney again forwarded the notice

to Whiteco asking that it handle the matter. Whiteco

appeared as the respondent before the City’s Department

of Administrative Hearings on September 30, 1997, and

admitted that it was not in compliance with the permit

requirement. The hearing officer entered the following

findings and order:

Respondent is found to be in violation of the Chicago

Building Code with regards to the afore stated charges;

however, Respondent afforded opportunity of mitiga-

tion via compliance. Compliance must be evidenced

by reinspection and/or other evidence corroborating

conditions. This matter is continued for hearing on

fines . . . .

App. 117 (footnote omitted).

8 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

Whiteco subsequently attempted to bring the sign into

compliance with the building code by applying for a

permit, but its efforts met with failure. On April 21, 1998,

the City’s Zoning Administrator denied zoning certifica-

tion for the sign on the grounds that the sign violated

the provision of the zoning ordinance regarding the

proximity of signs to residential districts and was not

grandfathered because there was no prior permit for the

sign on file. Given the lack of zoning certification, the City

did not issue a permit for the sign. Whiteco appealed

the denial of zoning certification to the City’s Zoning

Board of Appeals (“ZBA”), but the ZBA sustained the

denial on September 14, 1998.

The following month, a City hearing officer entered a

final order on the 1997 notice of violation imposing a

fine of $250 and ordering Whiteco to remove the sign

within 90 days in the event it did not obtain a permit. App.

161. By the terms of the City’s zoning ordinance, GASS as

the (effective) owner of the property is liable for the

violation to the same extent as its lessee, Whiteco. The

City’s order has yet to be enforced; to this day, Whiteco’s

successor continues to lease the sign and display adver-

tising on the south wall of GASS’s building.

Whiteco filed suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County

seeking judicial review of the ZBA’s decision, arguing

in part that the ZBA had overlooked the fact that no

permit had been required when the sign was first erected

in 1962 and that, consequently, the sign qualified as a

legal, non-conforming use under the grandfather provi-

sion of the zoning ordinance. The Circuit Court denied

review on March 2, 2000. The court found that Whiteco

had failed to present any evidence to the ZBA in support

of the notion that the sign constituted a legal, non-conform-

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 9

ing use. Whiteco appealed, but the Illinois Appellate Court

affirmed in September 2001 and the Illinois Supreme Court

subsequently denied Whiteco’s petition for leave to appeal.

In the meantime, GASS, as the owner of the property,

was seeking relief of its own. Late in 1999, GASS filed a

declaratory judgment action in state court challenging

the relevant provisions of the zoning ordinance and the

City’s failure to grant it a permit in 1994 on a variety of

grounds. At the same time, GASS sought leave to inter-

vene in Whiteco’s action so that it too could challenge

the ZBA’s refusal to order zoning certification for the

sign. The state court denied GASS’s request to intervene

in Whiteco’s suit,4 and GASS eventually dismissed its own

state-court suit in favor of the instant federal suit.

GASS (along with F.A.Y. and Cosmopolitan Bank, but

for the sake of simplicity, we shall refer only to GASS) filed

this section 1983 action against the City in January 2000.

GASS’s second amended complaint 5 asserted a variety of

4

There is a dispute between the parties as to whether the

City opposed GASS’s petition for leave to intervene in Whiteco’s

suit. We were led to believe in Gen. Auto Serv. Station LLC v.

City of Chicago, 319 F.3d 902, 905 (7th Cir. 2003), which we

discuss below, that the City actively had opposed GASS’s

petition. The City contends that we were mistaken in that

regard, although GASS and the other appellants do not share

that view. We need not resolve this dispute for purposes of

the instant appeal.

5

GASS filed the second amended complaint with the district

court’s permission after the bench trial had concluded, in order

to conform the allegations to the evidence. For the sake of

convenience, we shall refer to that version of the complaint,

(continued...)

10 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

constitutional claims, four of which are pursued in this

appeal. First, GASS asserted that the advertising sign

constituted commercial speech that was not misleading

and which the City had no legitimate or substantial inter-

est in restricting or prohibiting. The City’s invocation of

its zoning ordinance to prohibit the sign therefore deprived

GASS of its rights under the First Amendment to the U.S.

Constitution. R.122, Count I. Second, GASS contended that

the City, in failing to process its 1994 application for a

permit, violated its right to procedural due process under

the U.S. Constitution. Id., Count II. Third, GASS asserted

that in refusing to recognizing its sign as a lawful, non-

conforming use under the grandfather provision found in

section 6.7-1 of the zoning ordinance, the City had applied

its laws in a way that did not promote the public health,

safety, morals, or general welfare and therefore had

deprived GASS of substantive due process under the U.S.

Constitution. Id., Count III. Fourth, GASS claimed that the

City’s application of the 1990 zoning provisions, and

its refusal to grandfather the sign, amounted to a retroac-

tive application of laws enacted after the sign’s erection

that deprived GASS of its vested property and contractual

rights in a harsh, oppressive, and arbitrary manner,

thereby again depriving GASS of its right to substantive

5

(...continued)

which includes the First Amendment and procedural due

process claims that the court had dismissed prior to trial in

addition to the substantive due process claims that the court

disposed of after trial.

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 11

due process. Id., Count IV.6 GASS sought a declaratory

judgment on each of its claims and an injunction barring

the City from enforcing the zoning ordinance as to its

sign and/or requiring the City to issue a permit for the

sign.

Initially, the district court dismissed the suit without

prejudice, abstaining pursuant to Younger v. Harris, 401

U.S. 37, 91 S. Ct. 746 (1971), in deference to Whiteco’s then-

ongoing suit for administrative review in state court. R. 37,

2001 WL 558148; R. 44, 2002 WL 221582. We reversed

that dismissal in Gen. Auto Serv. Station LLC v. City of

Chicago, 319 F.3d 902, 905 (7th Cir. 2003). We reasoned

in relevant part that because GASS’s request to intervene

in Whiteco’s state court action had been denied, GASS

had not had the opportunity to defend its interests as the

owner of the property in that action. Id. at 905.

On remand, the district dismissed GASS’s First Amend-

ment and procedural due process claims. The court

concluded that the real focus of the First Amendment claim

was on the distinction that the grandfather provision

6

In addition to its federal claims, GASS asserted parallel state

claims under the pertinent provisions of the Illinois Constitu-

tion, although the state claims have not been discussed on

appeal. Illinois courts apply a limited version of the lockstep

doctrine, adhering to U.S. Supreme Court precedent con-

cerning the federal constitution when interpreting cognate

provisions of the state constitution. See People v. Colon, 866

N.E.2d 207, 223 (Ill. 2007) (citing People v. Caballes, 851 N.E.2d 26,

42 (Ill. 2006)). In the absence of any argument to the contrary,

we may assume that our analysis as to GASS’s federal con-

stitutional claims would also apply to its state constitutional

claims.

12 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

drew between signs erected pursuant to a permit and

signs, like GASS’s, which were erected at a time when no

permits were required. As such, the court reasoned, this

claim was nothing more than a restatement of GASS’s

separate substantive due process claim.

Plaintiffs claim that the zoning ordinance violates

the First Amendment because it allows advertising

signs that pre-dated the 1990 amendments and which

now violate those amendments to remain only if the

signs were initially erected pursuant to a permit,

regardless of whether such a permit was even re-

quired at the time the sign was erected. Plaintiffs’ sign

happens to be an advertising sign, but the provisions

they really challenge here—the legal, non-conforming

use and permit provisions, by which the City only

“grandfathers in” those signs that were issued pursu-

ant to a permit—apply to all signs, not just advertising

signs. Plaintiffs nowhere argue that the size and

distance restrictions on advertising signs found in

Section 8.9(7) will not pass constitutional muster. Thus,

the court agrees with the City that the Plaintiffs’

challenge is not aimed at the ordinance’s regulation

of commercial speech.

Moreover, as the court noted in its earlier decision

[dismissing the suit on abstention grounds], “Plaintiffs’

First Amendment argument is nothing more than a

restatement of its arguments that the City’s refusal to

‘grandfather’ Plaintiffs’ sign deprives it of due pro-

cess.” General Auto Service Station, 2001 WL 558148, at

*6. Plaintiffs cannot convert what is essentially a due

process claim into one under the First Amendment

merely by noting that theirs is an advertising sign.

Plaintiffs have not effectively alleged a First Amend-

ment Challenge to the zoning ordinance . . . .

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 13

R. 93, 2004 WL 442636, at *4-*5. The court found the

procedural due process claim to be untimely. That claim

was based on the City’s purported failure to process

Whiteco’s 1994 permit application. But GASS knew by

August 1997, when the City issued yet another notice of

violation, that the City had not processed the 1994 applica-

tion. Consequently, in the court’s view, the two-year

statute of limitations on this claim began to run no later

than August 1997 and had expired well before GASS

filed this suit in January 2000. Id. at *8 The court rejected

the City’s contention that the substantive due process

claims were also untimely. Id. at *9.

The district court conducted a one-day bench trial on

the substantive due process claims, and ultimately found

in favor of the City on those two claims. The court ruled

in the first instance that the claims were time barred,

contrary to its earlier holding on the motion to dismiss.

Both claims were focused on the City’s preferential treat-

ment of non-conforming signs that were erected with a

permit. However, as with the procedural due process

claim, the court concluded that the August 1997 notice

of violation put the plaintiffs on notice that the City was

not treating the non-permitted sign as grandfathered.

“Though the Zoning Administrator did not officially deny

Whiteco’s 1998 permit application until April 21, 1998,

Plaintiffs knew the circumstances that support the

claim they are presenting here—i.e., the differential

treatment of permitted and non-permitted legal, non-

conforming signs—by September 1997” when Heerey’s

attorney forwarded the 1997 violation notice to Whiteco. R.

126 at 12. Therefore, GASS was obliged to file suit on

these claims no later than September 1999, which it did not.

Id. The court ruled alternatively that the claims failed on

14 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

their merits. The premise of these claims was that be-

cause no permit was required when GASS erected its

sign, the sign constituted a legal, non-conforming use

just as if it had been erected with a permit. For that rea-

son, in GASS’s view, it was irrational to treat permitted

signs differently from non-permitted signs for purposes

of the grandfather provision. But GASS was wrong in

characterizing its sign as a legal non-conforming use, the

court found. Although a permit was not required when

Heerey installed the first sign in 1962, a permit was re-

quired when he later illuminated and enlarged the sign,

and a permit had never been obtained. Id. at 16-17. GASS

rejoined that the permit requirement as it existed at those

times amounted to an unconstitutional prior restraint on

speech and should be treated a nullity (rendering its non-

permitted sign legal) but the court was not convinced.

“Plaintiffs have not explained how Chapter 86.1, which at

all relevant times applied to all illuminated signs and not

just to advertising signs, constitutes a regulation of com-

mercial speech sufficient to implicate the First Amend-

ment.” Id. at 17.

GASS moved to amend the judgment, challenging the

court’s rationale in disposing of the substantive due

process claims, but the court denied the motion. The

court reiterated that GASS was made aware by the 1997

violation notice that the City would not deem its sign

covered by the grandfather clause, thus obligating GASS

to file suit no later than 1999. R. 144, 2006 WL 1460017, at

*2-*3. As to the merits, the court again rejected GASS’s

contention that the permit requirement, as it existed in

the 1960s and 1970s when GASS’s sign was illuminated

and then expanded, constituted an unlawful prior re-

straint on speech. The court pointed out that a key danger

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 15

posed by licensing schemes that grant unfettered discre-

tion to government officials is that a potential speaker will

be intimidated into censoring his own speech. Id. at *4

(citing City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publ’g Co., 486 U.S.

750, 759, 108 S. Ct. 2138, 2144 (1988)). That danger was not

implicated here: the permit applied only to illuminated

signs, leaving non-illuminated signs open as an alternative

outlet for unregulated speech; and, at the same time, the

permit requirement applied to all illuminated signs,

drawing no distinctions between commercial and non-

commercial speech. Id. at *5. Finally, the court rejected as

untimely GASS’s argument, made in a supplemental brief

in support of the motion to amend, that it retained, at a

minimum, a vested property interest in the sign in a non-

illuminated, un-enlarged state given that no permit was

required when Heerey first erected the sign in 1962. “This

is the first time that Plaintiffs have claimed a property

interest in the Wall Sign other than as currently con-

figured, and Plaintiffs make no attempt to explain why

they failed to raise this claim . . . previously.” Id. The

court noted alternatively that GASS had never firmly

established that its sign as originally erected truly complied

with all applicable ordinances. Id. The court had assumed

that the sign was consistent with the pre-1990 version of

the zoning ordinance, but GASS had never actually

proven to the satisfaction of the court that the sign was

in fact legal in its non-illuminated, non-enlarged state. Id.

II.

A. Substantive Due Process

GASS has asserted two claims for deprivation of its

Fourteenth Amendment right to substantive due process.

16 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

See generally County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833,

840, 118 S. Ct. 1708, 1713-14 (1998).

The claim that a person is entitled to “substantive due

process” means, as we understand the concept, that

state action which deprives him of life, liberty, or

property must have a rational basis—that is to say,

the reason for the deprivation may not be so inade-

quate that the judiciary will characterize it as “arbi-

trary.” . . .

Jeffries v. Turkey Run Consol. Sch. Dist., 492 F.2d 1, 3-4 (7th

Cir. 1974) (Stevens, J.). See also Indiana Land Co. v. City

of Greenwood, 378 F.3d 705, 711 (7th Cir. 2004).

Both of GASS’s due process claims are premised on the

notion that its sign was an established and lawful use of

its property before the City’s zoning ordinance was

modified in 1990 to prohibit advertising signs within 250

feet of a residential district, and that, consequently, GASS

has a vested property interest in continuing to display

its sign of which it may not be deprived without substan-

tive due process. For purposes of a due process claim,

property interests are created and defined by an independ-

ent source, such as a contract or state law. E.g., Miyler v.

Vill. of E. Galesburg, 512 F.3d 896, 898 (7th Cir. 2008) (citing

Bd. of Regents of State Colls. v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S. Ct.

2701 (1972)). Illinois case law recognizes that a property

owner can acquire a property interest in continuing a

land use that was lawful when commenced and rendered

unlawful (i.e., non-conforming) only by a subsequent

legislative enactment. See Taylor v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals of

City of Evanston, 874 N.E.2d 927, 933 (Ill. App. Ct. 2007)

(coll. cases).

Once a landowner obtains such a state-created property

right, the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 17

circumscribes, but does not eliminate, the government’s

ability to deprive him of that interest. As we observed in

Lee v. City of Chicago, “[S]ubstantive due process is not ‘a

blanket protection against unjustifiable interferences with

property.’ ” 330 F.3d 456, 461 (7th Cir. 2003) (quoting

Schroeder v. City of Chicago, 927 F.2d 957, 961 (7th Cir.

1991)). And it does not confer on federal courts a license to

act as zoning boards of appeals. Ctrs., Inc. v. Town of

Brookfield, Wis., 148 F.3d 699, 704 (7th Cir. 1998); Albiero

v. City of Kankakee, 122 F.3d 417, 420 (7th Cir. 1997). It is

instead a modest limitation that prohibits government

action only when it is random and irrational. “Unless

a governmental practice encroaches on a fundamental

right, substantive due process requires only that the

practice be rationally related to a legitimate governmental

interest, or alternatively phrased, that the practice be

neither arbitrary nor irrational.” Lee, 330 F.3d at 467 (citing

Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 728, 117 S. Ct. 2258,

2271 (1997)). A property owner challenging a land-use

regulation as a violation of due process is therefore

obliged to show that the regulation is arbitrary and unrea-

sonable, bearing no substantial relationship to public

health, safety, or welfare. E.g., Greater Chicago Combine &

Ctr., Inc. v. City of Chicago, 431 F.3d 1065, 1071 (7th Cir.

2005). And because the right infringed upon is an inter-

est in property rather than life or liberty, the property

owner must first establish either an independent con-

stitutional violation or the inadequacy of state remedies to

redress the deprivation before a court will consider

whether the interference with property is arbitrary or

irrational. Lee, 330 F.3d at 467.

In this case, GASS contends that the City’s conduct in

prohibiting its sign was arbitrary and irrational in two

18 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

ways. It contends first that the application of the zoning

ordinance failed to promote the public health, safety,

morals, and/or welfare because it arbitrarily grandfathered

advertising signs that had been erected pursuant to a

permit but not signs for which no permit had been re-

quired. (Count III.) Second, it contends that the City’s

application of the zoning ordinance was apparently

retroactive, resulting in an infringement of GASS’s vested

property rights in a harsh and oppressive manner. Specifi-

cally, GASS notes that the City demanded in 1997 that it

obtain a permit for a sign that had been erected some

thirty years earlier, but then denied GASS’s application

for a permit based on current zoning restrictions that did

not exist when the sign was installed. (Count IV.)

There is an initial question as to the timeliness of these

claims. The district court concluded, and the City argues

here, that the 1997 notice of violation was sufficient to

put Heerey and GASS on notice that it intended to treat

permitted and non-permitted signs differently for pur-

poses of grandfathering, and thus supplied the plaintiffs

with all of the information they needed in order to assert

a due process claim. Under that view, GASS was obliged

to file suit no later than 1999, within the two-year statute

of limitations for section 1983 claims that we have bor-

rowed from Illinois law. See, e.g., Jenkins v. Vill. of Maywood,

506 F.3d 622, 623 (7th Cir. 2007). GASS replies that it

was not yet clear in 1997 that the City would not belatedly

grant the plaintiffs a permit for the sign; indeed, in 1995,

the City zoning department had signaled an inclination to

grant such a permit when its employee Merritt character-

ized the sign as a legal non-conforming use. GASS also

makes a more fundamental contention that because it

seeks only declaratory and injunctive relief (its sign still

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 19

exists today, so it has yet to suffer any injury for which it

might seek compensation), its substantive due process

claims are not subject to a statute of limitations. See Lavey

v. City of Two Rivers, 994 F. Supp. 1019, 1023 (E.D. Wis.

1998) (rejecting argument that section 1983 challenge to

local sign ordinance was untimely, noting that plaintiff

sought only declaratory and injunctive relief), judgment

aff’d, 171 F.3d 1110 (7th Cir. 1999); cf. Nat’l Adver. Co. v.

City of Raleigh, 947 F.2d 1158, 1168 (4th Cir. 1991) (cited in

Lavey) (“it is doubtful that an ordinance facially offensive

to the First Amendment can be insulated from challenge

by a statutory limitations period”); Maldonado v. Harris,

370 F.3d 945, 955 & n.6 (9th Cir. 2004) (seconding Fourth

Circuit’s doubts and collecting district court cases in

like vein).

We need not resolve the timeliness question. The ex-

piration of the statute of limitations is an affirmative

defense that does not affect our subject matter jurisdiction

to hear the case. E.g., Jogi v. Voges, 480 F.3d 822, 836 (7th

Cir. 2007). We may assume that even if GASS’s claim is

subject to a two-year statute of limitations, the limitations

period did not begin to run when Heerey received the

1997 notice of limitation, as it was not yet clear at that time

that the City would refuse to grant a permit for the sign.

But even if we assume that the due process claims are

timely, they nonetheless fail on their merits.

Intrusion upon a cognizable property interest is a

threshold prerequisite to a substantive due process claim

of the type that GASS asserts. See, e.g., Am. Mfrs. Mut. Ins.

Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 59, 119 S. Ct. 977, 989 (1999)

(“The first inquiry in every due process challenge is

whether the plaintiff has been deprived of a protected

interest in ‘property’ or ‘liberty.’ ”); Swartz v. Scruton, 964

20 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

F.2d 607, 609 (7th Cir. 1992); Garza v. Miller, 688 F.2d 480,

485 (7th Cir. 1982). “In other words, no abstract right to

substantive due process exists under the Constitution.”

Zorzi v. County of Putnam, 30 F.3d 885, 895 (7th Cir. 1994).

Consequently, the lack of a protected property interest

is fatal to a substantive due process claim. Id. at 894.

GASS’s substantive due process claims, as we have

said, are premised on the notion that because its advertis-

ing sign constituted a legal use of its property prior to the

1990 amendments to the Chicago zoning ordinance, GASS

has a protected property interest in continuing this

prior, legitimate, albeit now non-conforming, use of the

property. This might be true of the original, non-illumi-

nated sign that Heerey first had painted on his building in

1962. Although that sign was painted on the building

without a permit, the district court determined or

assumed that the relevant provisions of the zoning ordi-

nance and electrical code did not require a permit for

such a sign, and we (like the parties) have accepted her

ruling in that regard as correct. Consequently, the sign

in its original form arguably constituted a prior non-

conforming use in which GASS has a protected property

interest and of which it may not be deprived arbitrarily.

And GASS, of course, contends that it is arbitrary and

irrational for the City to treat as grandfathered signs that

were erected with a permit but not signs, like its own, that

were lawfully erected without a permit.

But even granting that GASS may have had a pro-

tected property interest in the original, non-illuminated

sign, it could not have acquired such an interest in the

later manifestations of the sign. When Heerey illuminated

the sign in the late 1960s, and when he expanded the

sign in the 1970s, he was obligated by the express terms

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 21

of the City’s electrical code to obtain a permit, which, so

far as the evidence reveals, he did not do. Thus, the

expanded and illuminated sign that existed in 1990, when

the City amended the zoning ordinance to prohibit ad-

vertising signs within 250 feet of a residential district,

was not an authorized use of the property that GASS had

any protected interest in continuing as a legal non-con-

forming use. Taylor, 874 N.E.2d at 933 (citing Wright v.

County of DuPage, 736 N.E.2d 650, 659 (Ill. App. Ct. 2000));

City of Marengo v. Pollack, 782 N.E.2d 913, 917 (Ill. App. Ct.

2002). And absent a protected property interest in the

sign, GASS’s substantive due process claims necessarily

fail. E.g., Zorzi, 30 F.3d at 895.

GASS does not dispute that the terms of the electrical

code required Heerey to obtain a permit when he illumi-

nated and expanded the sign, but GASS argues that the

permit requirement itself was constitutionally invalid.

Specifically, GASS contends that the permit require-

ment amounted to an invalid prior restraint on speech

(as advertising, the sign constituted commercial speech,

see Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, 453 U.S. 490, 501,

101 S. Ct. 2882, 2889 (1981) (plurality)), in that the relevant

terms of the permitting scheme placed no limits on the

City’s discretion to deny a permit nor any time con-

straints on the City’s decision to grant or deny a permit.

See generally FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215,

225-27, 110 S. Ct. 596, 604-05 (1990) (plurality); Weinberg

v. City of Chicago, 310 F.3d 1029, 1045 (7th Cir. 2002); see

also, e.g., Solantic LLC v. City of Neptune Beach, 410 F.3d

1250, 1272 (11th Cir. 2005) (permitting scheme for signs

amounted to unconstitutional prior restraint given lack of

time limits on city’s obligation to act on permit applica-

tions); Desert Outdoor Adver., Inc. v. City of Moreno

22 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

Valley, 103 F.3d 814, 818-19 (9th Cir. 1996) (sign permit

ordinance constituted unlawful prior restraint in view

of city’s unbridled discretion to deny sign permits).

GASS adds that the permit application itself requested

information about the content of the proposed sign (in-

quiring, for example, what the “sign will read”), suggesting

that the City may have been making content-based deci-

sions about which permit applications it would grant

and which it would deny.7 In any case, given the asserted

defects in the permitting scheme as it existed when

Heerey illuminated and expanded the sign, GASS con-

tends that the permit requirement should be treated as a

nullity with which Heerey was not obligated to comply. See

Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147, 151, 89

S. Ct. 935, 939 (1969) (“a person faced with such an uncon-

stitutional licensing law may ignore it and engage with

impunity in the exercise of free expression for which the

law purports to require a license”).

We may accept without deciding that the features of the

City’s permitting scheme on which GASS has focused

indeed rendered the permit requirement incompatible

with the First Amendment, such that Heerey was entitled

to ignore it. Indeed, Heerey did ignore it. So far as the

record reveals, he not only never obtained a permit autho-

rizing him to illuminate and then expand the sign on his

building, but never bothered applying for one; nonethe-

less, he proceeded to illuminate and enlarge the sign. His

speech, or more properly, that of his lessees, was never

7

We note, however, that GASS relies for this point on the

permit applications Whiteco completed in 1994 and 1997, App.

113A, 118, rather than on any proof as to what information the

permit applications required in the 1960s and 1970s.

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 23

restrained. Of course, this does not preclude GASS from

attacking the validity of the permit requirement.

Shuttlesworth, 394 U.S. at 151, 89 S. Ct. at 939. But the

question for us is whether, by virtue of the defects in

the permitting scheme as it existed in that time period,

Heerey and GASS also obtained a protected property

interest in the sign as a lawful, non-conforming use, just

as if Heerey had obtained a permit or as if the electrical

code had not required a permit for the illumination

or expansion of an existing sign.

Our decision in Petra Presbyterian Church v. Vill. of

Northbrook, 489 F.3d 846 (7th Cir. 2007), cert. denied, 128

S. Ct. 914 (2008), decided shortly after we heard argu-

ment in this case, reveals that the answer to this question

is no. The plaintiff in Petra was a religious congregation

that had purchased a warehouse in the hopes of con-

verting the facility into a church. The property was located

in an area of a suburban Chicago village that was zoned

for industrial use. Although a 1988 zoning ordinance

permitted other membership organizations, including

community and youth centers, fraternal associations, and

political clubs, to operate facilities in an industrial dis-

trict, the ordinance did not allow a church to locate there

absent rezoning of the property and issuance of a

special use permit. Before purchasing its property, Petra

applied for the necessary rezoning and permit. However,

after neighboring landowners voiced opposition to the

request, the local planning commission recommended to

the village board of trustees that the application be

denied, and the trustees signaled their inclination to

acquiesce in the commission’s advice. Before the denial

could be formalized, Petra withdrew its application but

it nonetheless proceeded to purchase the property and,

24 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

without authorization, began using the warehouse as a

church. In the meantime, Congress had enacted the Reli-

gious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000

(“RLUIPA”), which among other things prohibits a local

government from imposing or implementing a land use

regulation that “treats a religious assembly or institution

on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly

or institution.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(b)(1). Fearing that its

1988 ordinance might be invalid under RLUIPA because

it treated religious organizations less favorably than

other membership organizations in terms of their ability

to operate in an industrial district, the village in 2003

adopted a revised ordinance that banned all membership

organizations from industrial districts. Existing organiza-

tions were grandfathered, but Petra, which had never

received permission to operate a church in the industrial

district, was not. After the new ordinance was enacted,

the village sought and obtained an injunction in state

court effectively barring Petra from conducting worship

services in its facility. The plaintiff filed suit in federal

court under RLUIPA and lost in the district court.

Among other arguments, Petra contended on appeal

that although it had never obtained the requisite rezoning

and permit to operate a church within the industrial

zone of the village, it nonetheless had obtained a vested

interest in continuing to operate a church there. Petra

claimed that when it bought the property, it was relying

on the invalidity of the 1988 zoning ordinance, which by

treating religious organizations less favorably than other

membership organizations violated not only RLUIPA but

the free-exercise clause of the First Amendment. By virtue

of that reliance, Petra maintained that it had obtained

an indefeasible right to use the warehouse for a church. So

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 25

in Petra’s view, even if the zoning ordinance enacted in

2003 barring all membership organizations from the

industrial zone were valid, Petra would still have the

right to operate its church there like any other grand-

fathered organization—in other words, as if it had ob-

tained the village’s permission to do so in the first instance.

We categorically rejected the notion that Petra could

have acquired any right to operate a church in reliance on

the invalidity of the zoning ordinance that was in effect

when it purchased the property and established its church:

We cannot find any basis, whether in cases or other

conventional sources of law, or in good sense, for the

proposition that the federal Constitution forbids a

state that has prevented a use of property by means

of an invalid (even an unconstitutional) enactment to

continue to prevent that use by means of a valid one.

From the proposition that the Village should not

have discriminated in the industrial zone in favor of

secular membership organizations it does not fol-

low that when it eliminated the discrimination by

banning all membership from the zone, this entitled

the victim of the discrimination to claim, by way of

remedy, discrimination in its favor. So strange a rule

of estoppel could hardly be thought an imperative of

due process, especially since, although property

rights are protected (to a degree) by the due process

clauses of the Constitution, the scope of those rights

is determined by state law within broad limits that

include the conditions under which a governmental

act can render a property right indefeasible. Crown

Media, L.L.C. v. Gwinnet County, 380 F.3d 1317, 1325 &

n.18 (11th Cir. 2004); Coral Springs Street Sys., Inc. v.

City of Sunrise, 371 F.3d 1320, 1333 (11th Cir. 2004);

26 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

Lakeview Dev. Corp. v. City of South Lake Tahoe, 915

F.2d 1290, 1294-95 (9th Cir. 1990).

And if there were such a rule of constitutional law

(“vesting by estoppel”), it would be inapplicable to this

case. If the 1988 ordinance violated RLUIPA, as

Northbrook comes close to conceding, Petra didn’t

have to comply with it. But that doesn’t mean that

it acquired an immunity from all zoning regulation.

It knew or should have known that Northbrook

could redo its ordinance to comply with the “less

than equal terms” provision of RLUIPA in one of two

ways: by permitting religious organizations in the

industrial zone, or by forbidding all membership

organizations in the zone. Petra could not reasonably

assume that the Village would choose the first option.

And since it therefore did not reasonably rely on the

illegality of the 1988 ordinance in going ahead

and buying the property, but instead assumed the

palpable risk that a new, valid ordinance would

continue the ban on its desired use of the property,

it has no ground for blocking the Village from en-

forcing the amended ordinance against it, on the

theory that the Village pulled the rug out from under

it by changing the ordinance.

489 F.3d at 849 (emphasis in original).

GASS finds itself in essentially the same position as the

plaintiff in Petra. GASS wishes to continue using its

property in a manner that the current version of the

City’s zoning ordinance prohibits, because its sign is

larger than 100 square feet and is within 250 feet of a

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 27

residential district.8 GASS’s only means of preserving its

sign is to establish that the sign was a lawful use prior to

the zoning change. The problem for GASS, as it was for

Petra, is that neither GASS nor Heerey ever obtained

the permits that were required for its use; Heerey illumi-

nated and expanded the sign without even seeking a

permit. So even before the current zoning took effect,

GASS’s sign, like Petra’s church, was an unauthorized use

of its property. GASS cannot claim a protected interest in

continuing to display advertising that, once illuminated

and expanded, was illegal from the start. To circumvent

that obstacle, GASS seeks to rely on constitutional defects

in the permitting scheme in effect in the 1960s and 1970s,

contending that these defects rendered the permit require-

ment a nullity and rendered its illuminated and expanded

sign a lawful use of the property notwithstanding its lack

of the requisite permits for such a sign. GASS, just like

the plaintiff in Petra, is retrospectively relying on the

supposed illegality of former incarnations of the zoning

ordinance to transform its unlicensed use of property

into an authorized use and to give it a property interest

in continued use of that property despite subsequent

changes to the zoning code. GASS’s creative bootstrapping

effort fails for precisely the same reasons that Petra’s did.

We note that, consistent with our decision in Petra,

Illinois cases also reject the notion that a property owner

may rely on purported defects in prior versions of the

law as the springboard to claim a vested interest in a

property use for which it never obtained permission. As

the court reasoned in City of Elgin v. All Nations Worship

Ctr., 860 N.E.2d 853, 857 (Ill. App. Ct. 2006):

8

No question is raised as to the validity of the current prohibi-

tion.

28 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

[V]ested rights are acquired by attempting to comply

with an ordinance as written. . . . [W]hen a party

expends substantial time and effort attempting to

comply with an ordinance as it then exists and then

the legislative body amends the ordinance, the party

may acquire a vested right to proceed under the old

ordinance. [Citation omitted.] Here, however All

Nations proceeded in violation of the zoning ordinance

as written. It is difficult to see how All Nations can

claim a vested right to ignore the existing ordinance.

(Emphasis in original.) See also Nat’l Adver. Co. v. Vill. of

Downers Grove, 561 N.E.2d 1300, 1304-05 (Ill. App. Ct. 1990).

As it is Illinois law to which GASS must look for a prop-

erty right, these holdings confirm that GASS lacks the

requisite basis for a due process claim.

As a fallback, GASS contends that at the very least, it

has a protected property interest in continuing to display

a smaller, non-illuminated sign on its building. Because,

as the district court assumed, no permit was required for

the sign or signs Heerey originally had painted on his

building in the early 1960s, that type of sign was an

authorized use and GASS argues that it may assert a

right to display at least that type of advertising, even if

it has no claim to the larger, illuminated sign for which

it never sought the requisite permits.

But this is an argument that GASS made too late in

the day. GASS first advanced this argument in a mean-

ingful way in its supplement to its post-trial motion

under Rule 59 to amend the judgment. R. 131. Arguments

that could have been made earlier but are instead raised

for the first time in a Rule 59 motion are waived. E.g.,

Estremera v. United States, 442 F.3d 580, 587 (7th Cir. 2006).

The argument was hinted at parenthetically in the

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 29

pretrial order’s recitation of GASS’s proposed legal con-

clusions (see R. 111 Ex. L at 8 ¶ 44), and again in the

opening statement that GASS’s lawyer made at trial,

R. 166 at 16, but those references alone were insufficient

to alert either the City or the court to the argument that

GASS finally developed and supported in the supple-

ment to its Rule 59 motion. As the district court noted,

GASS offered no explanation for its tardiness in pursuing

this argument. R. 144, 2006 WL 1460017, at *5. We do not

reach the merits of the argument, concluding that GASS

waived it.

Because GASS has not established that its sign was

lawful before the 1990 zoning change that banned ad-

vertising signs within 250 feet of a residential district, it has

no protected property interest in the sign that would

support a substantive due process claim. On that basis,

we affirm the entry of judgment against GASS and in

favor of the City on the substantive due process claims

set forth in Counts III and IV of GASS’s second amended

complaint.

B. Procedural Due Process

In a cursory argument spanning all of two paragraphs

in its opening brief (GASS Br. at 43-44), GASS argues

that the district court incorrectly dismissed as untimely

its procedural due process claim. The argument is so brief

that GASS has waived it. See, e.g., Robinson v. Alter Barge

Line, Inc., 513 F.3d 668, 675 (7th Cir. 2008). GASS does not

even set out the elements of a procedural due process

claim. See Mema v. Gonzales, 474 F.3d 412, 421 (7th Cir.

2007); Estate of Allen v. City of Rockford, 349 F.3d 1015, 1022

n.9 (7th Cir. 2003).

30 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

C. First Amendment

Finally, GASS contends that its complaint alleged a

valid claim for the threatened and impending denial of its

First Amendment right to free speech based on the com-

mercial content of the sign. Recall that the district court

dismissed this claim because the focus of GASS’s chal-

lenge was not on a provision of the zoning ordinance

having to do with the nature or content of the sign, but

rather on the grandfather provision of the ordinance

which allowed non-conforming signs erected pursuant to

a permit to remain after the 1990 zoning changes but

not signs erected without a permit. That provision, the

court pointed out, applied to all signs, not just advertising

signs; consequently, GASS’s claim did not in fact have

to do with the regulation of commercial speech. Moreover,

as a challenge to the grandfather provision, the court

viewed this claim as simply a restatement of GASS’s

substantive due process claims. “Plaintiffs cannot convert

what is essentially a due process claim into one under the

First Amendment merely by noting that theirs is an

advertising sign.” R. 93, 2004 WL 442636, at *5.

GASS contends that the district court overlooked the

First Amendment implications of its challenge. Although

the grandfather provision found in section 6.7-1(a) of the

zoning ordinance applies to a variety of signs, not just

those displaying advertising, as relevant here it operates

as an exemption from the limits imposed by section 8.9(7)

of the ordinance, which prohibits advertising signs in

excess of 100 square feet from being within 250 of a resi-

dence district. “The regulation at issue, therefore, is a reg-

ulation of commercial speech.” GASS Amended Br. 46. As

such, GASS reasons, it must be scrutinized under the four-

part test for regulation of commercial speech set forth

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 31

in Cent. Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Pub. Serv. Com’n of

New York, 447 U.S. 557, 566, 100 S. Ct. 2343, 2351 (1980).

That test requires in part that a restriction on legitimate,

non-misleading commercial speech must be designed to

advance a substantial government interest. See id. at 564,

100 S. Ct. at 2350. GASS contends that the City has no

legitimate interest in grandfathering non-conforming

advertising signs that were erected pursuant to a permit

but not those, like its own, that were erected without

one; that distinction, in GASS’s view, is irrational and

arbitrary. GASS Amended Br. 47. It likens the distinction

to the one that the City of Cincinnati drew between the

use of newsracks on the public way to distribute com-

mercial bills, which the city prohibited, and the use of

such racks to distribute newspapers, which the city al-

lowed. The Supreme Court deemed that distinction

unconstitutional in City of Cincinnati v. Discovery Network,

Inc., 507 U.S. 410, 113 S. Ct. 1505 (1993), finding there to

be no reasonable fit between the city’s interest in

aesthetics and safety and its decision to ban only those

newsracks distributing commercial bills.

Try as it might, GASS has not succeeded in stating a

claim for the regulation of commercial speech. True

enough, section 8.9(7) of the zoning ordinance is a regula-

tion of commercial speech, in that it specifically bans

advertising signs larger than 100 square feet from being

located within 250 feet of a residence district. But GASS

does not contend that the constitutionality of section 8.9(7)

itself is suspect. It does not even analyze section 8.9(7)

pursuant to the Central Hudson test. Its attack, as the district

court recognized and as GASS’s appellate brief makes

plain, is on the grandfather provision of section 6.7-1(a),

and the differing treatment that provision grants to previ-

32 Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672

ously permitted signs as distinct from signs that were

enacted without a permit. Yet, the grandfather provision

is not a provision that is triggered by the commercial

content of the sign in question. As GASS concedes, sec-

tion 6.7-1(a) applies to all manner of signs, not just adver-

tising signs. As such, we agree with the City that the

grandfather provision is a content-neutral time, place,

and manner restriction on speech rather than a regula-

tion of commercial speech. See Discovery Networks, 507

U.S. at 428, 113 S. Ct. at 1516; see also, e.g., Solantic LLC v.

City of Neptune Beach, supra, 410 F.3d at 1268 n.15.

The City has gone on to analyze the grandfather provi-

sion as a time, place and manner restriction, but GASS

itself has made no argument that the provision is uncon-

stitutional under that framework, thereby waiving any

such contention. For these reasons, we believe the dis-

trict court correctly dismissed GASS’s First Amendment

claim.

III.

GASS has reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars in

revenues from its sign despite the fact that the sign has

been unauthorized for the past three or more decades.

Those days are at an end. Because GASS’s predecessor

Heerey failed to obtain the requisite permits to illuminate

and then expand the sign in the 1960s and 70s, the sign

was not a legal land use that gave rise to a protected

property interest. Absent such a vested property right,

GASS cannot mount a substantive due process challenge

to the 1990 amendments to the City’s zoning ordinance,

which prohibited signs as large as GASS’s within 250 feet

of a residential district and grandfathered only those

Nos. 05-2515 & 06-2672 33

existing, non-conforming signs which had been erected

pursuant to a permit. GASS has not shown how the

First Amendment is implicated by the content-neutral

provisions of the 1990 grandfather provision. GASS’s

procedural due process claim has been waived. For all of

these reasons, we A FFIRM the district court’s judgment.

USCA-02-C-0072—5-16-08