Leominster, MA Sign Regulations: Window Signs (2026)

5 lists window signs among the by-right categories that do not need a permit from the director of inspections, but caps them at a fixed share of the glass: window signs, in nonresidential buildings, and, if in the BA, BB, C, I, MU1, MU2 or V districts, in residential buildings, may not exceed twenty percent of the area of the window. Outside those business, commercial, industrial, mixed-use and village districts, a residential building's windows do not get the same by-right allowance for window signage. Any window display that exceeds the twenty-percent threshold no longer qualifies as an exempt sign and instead falls under Sec.

2's general rule, which sends every other sign in the city through the permit process administered by the director of inspections, with an application, scale drawings and certificate of insurance required under Sec. 22-69. The twenty-percent cap sits alongside the ordinance's calculation rules in Sec. 1, and the sign-area formula in Sec. 1 measures the smallest square, circle, triangle or rectangle that completely encloses the outer extremities of all graphic material, the same method used to check whether a given window display is within bounds.

Businesses that letter or post product signage across most of a storefront window, common with sale banners or full window wraps, risk crossing the twenty-percent line and triggering the permit requirement.