Union County, NC Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

020 prohibits signs that revolve, animate or otherwise use movement or apparent movement to attract attention, and the ordinance names the technology this reaches by name: banners, streamers, animated display boards, electronic message centers, digital display signs, video signs, pennants and propellers are all listed as prohibited sign characteristics in unincorporated Union County. That sweeps in the kind of digital billboard that changes its message on a screen, since a rotating or scrolling digital display reads as animated movement under the rule regardless of what content it shows.

The section carries one narrow exception: it does not prohibit a digital display that shows only the time, date or weather conditions and carries no commercial message. The same section separately bans flashing lights, projected or moving images and moving parts on a sign unless another part of the ordinance expressly authorizes them, and bars search lights, strobe lights and rotating beams that resemble emergency lighting. The definitions article reinforces the ban by defining a flashing sign as one using intermittent or flashing light, or a scrolled light, to attract attention, which is the same visual effect a digital billboard produces when it cycles between advertisements.

Because the prohibition sits in the sign article's mandatory characteristics list rather than in a district-specific standard, it applies uniformly across every zoning district in unincorporated Union County.