Owensboro, KY Sign Regulations: Window Signs (2026)

Window signs get one of the lightest treatments in the City of Owensboro's sign code. Appendix F Section 9-3(b) lists seven categories of signs that are 'generally outside the scope of this article and therefore shall be required to comply only with the general provisions of this article relating to lighting,' and item (5) covers 'signs and other displays located inside a building window and intended to communicate a message or to attract the attention of people moving about public rights-of-way.' Because window signs sit in that category rather than the fully-exempt list in Section 9-1(b) or the fully-regulated on-premises sign rules in Section 9-5, a business can post posters, banners, or lit displays inside its storefront glass without a sign permit under Section 9-3(c), without counting toward the two-sign, forty-square-foot temporary sign limit in Section 9-3(d), and without any area or height ceiling at all.

The one rule that still reaches a window sign is lighting: Section 9-3(g) prohibits flashing signs unless the article specifically allows them, and requires light sources to be shielded so they minimize, 'to the greatest possible extent,' any bulb over one hundred watts shining into the eyes of passing motorists. A retailer running an illuminated window display therefore has essentially free rein on size, number, and placement so long as the lighting itself is shielded to that standard, since window placement, unlike a freestanding yard sign or an off-premises billboard, was written out of every other numeric requirement in Article IX.