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City Council approves mural guidelines
1961 mural on Fourth Street Ceres
The tradition of painting murals on walls of downtown Ceres businesses goes back to 1961 when the townsfolk came together for a Paint Festival. Today’s murals are a bit more sophisticated than the one here on the side of the Fourth Street library building. - photo by Contributed to the Courier

In response to the quest to add murals throughout Ceres, the City Council on Monday voted to add an entire new section to the Ceres Municipal Code to regulate the artwork going up in public view.

The new section will be tucked into Title 5, Business Licenses and Regulations.

City Manager Doug Dunford said the regulations are necessary to “prevent damage to the city’s aesthetic appeal and protect public safety. The ordinance sets content-neutral standards in compliance with the First Amendment and ensures that mural project permits are accessed with standardized criteria.”

“The ordinance distinguishes murals from commercial speech. Specifically the regulations forbid obscene content in murals, which is a narrow but permissible regulation on free speech.”

The ordinance also sets up a permit process to allow the city to review a mockup of the proposed mural artwork.

“The council is going to have to set fees for these projects,” said Dunford.

He said without mural standards “we’ve seen what can happen if we don’t control those murals and that was on the smoke shop when we had various designs that were not approved or favorable to the city.”

Dunford’s referenced the murals which began appearing on the VIP Smoke Shop at El Camino Avenue and Fifth Street earlier this year. Images of the late Bob Marley taking a hit from a hookah, a cartoonish Cheech and Chong riding in a smoke-filled van and Bart Simpson spray-painting graffiti wasn’t exactly the type of murals the city was envisioning when they agreed to form a murals committee in November. The shop later modified the art after the city officials expressed their disapproval.

The city aims to concentrate murals to downtown Ceres – the area from the south of Whitmore Avenue to the north side of El Camino between the east side of Second Street and the west side of Sixth Street – but will not deny them in other areas of the city.

The city encourages murals reflecting Ceres’  history and its development and its surrounding environs. The following criteria shall apply to murals:

• Paint shall be appropriate for use in an outdoor locale and for an artistic rendition and shall be of a permanent, long-lasting variety that is safe to the public.

• The mural shall be designed and painted by qualified mural artists with sufficient knowledge in the design of such projects and the application of paints for such projects.

• The mural shall not contain moving elements, flashing or sequential lights, lighting elements, or other automated methods resulting in movement.

• The mural shall not pose a potential traffic hazard.

• The mural shall not contain any reference to or promotion of products, businesses, or commercial enterprises.

• The mural shall not contain any obscene content.

Noting that no citizens commented about the action, Councilman James Casey hammered on his reoccurring theme that more public input should be required to craft a murals policy.

Vice Mayor Bret Silveira said he voted yes “with angst,” adding “I caution the city getting into the mural business.”

The ordinance must undergo a second reading and adoption, set to take place on Aug. 12, for it to take effect.