‘I don’t understand it’: New York says a pie shop’s 25-year-old roadside sign is illegal — but it needs a permit costing up to $400 just to remove it

“This is what I’m supposed to do in life,” Schenk told The New York Times in 2024. “This is my thing.”

The Times recognized her business for growing “from a roadside stand into a national enterprise.” At the time, she was selling upwards of 20,000 pies per year. Flash forward to 2018, and Schenk said she was selling some 60,000 pies each year in an interview with the Beyond the Table podcast. Her business is still going strong today — with the same sign that’s stood outfront all along.

“My dad made me the original one out of plywood and painted it, and it was great but it fell apart,” Schenk told News 8. “So, I had this one made by a friend that was exactly like the other one, and it’s been up there a long time.”

Up until now, Schenk said that she has displayed the sign, fixed to a utility pole, with no issues from the state.

“Why the change now?” Schenk asked. “What’s the difference in the road? What’s the difference with the sign? Nothing that I can see. Have the rules and laws changed? I don’t know, I don’t understand it.”

The state says the sign is illegal

The certified letter from NYSDOT cites the sign as a violation of some state roadway ordinances because it’s allegedly “encroaching on Route 21.”

The laws surrounding roadside signs date back decades.

On October 22, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Highway Beautification Act into law. The act and its subsequent amendments intend to “provide the necessary control of signs,” which Congress has deemed necessary to “protect the public investment in the highways, to promote the safety and recreational value of public travel and to preserve the natural beauty of America’s highways,” according to the NYSDOT.

The NYSDOT recommends that sign applicants check with their local municipalities concerning any local requirements before putting up roadside business signs.

In other words: While highway business signs are not illegal in New York state, placing private signs in the public right-of-way — or failing to follow the state permitting, zoning, size and spacing rules — is indeed illegal.