Mount Vernon Athletic Club fined for illegal roadside signs

A sign for the Mount Vernon Athletic Club is seen on the side of Richmond Highway on June 5.

A longtime fitness club in the Hybla Valley area has been identified as a repeat offender of Fairfax County’s roadside sign policy.

In an article on its website last week, the county announced five businesses had been fined various amounts for their illegal roadside signs, including the Mount Vernon Athletic Club, which is located just off of Richmond Highway. The club was hit with a $200 fine from the county.

Fairfax said it has levied $6,000 in fines against the five businesses since May. The biggest fine was levied on a business called “We Pay up to $100-200 Junk Car,” which must pay the county $3,500.

By law, Fairfax is allowed to assess illegal sign owners a $100 penalty per sign. The fines announced last week target repeat offenders of the sign policy, according to Jack Weyant, Director of the Department of Code Compliance.

“The companies/people who are having fines assessed against them are those violators who have been warned to cease from the sign postings but who continue to post signs throughout the County,” Weyant said in an email.

Van Metre Companies, who owns and operates the Mount Vernon Athletic Club, could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

The county began a program in 2013 aimed at aggressively removing signs from a select group of major roads throughout the county. Jail inmates, supervised by the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, pick up the signs a few days each week.

These five roads around the Route 1 corridor are targeted:

• Richmond Highway
• Telegraph Road
• North/South Kings Highway
• Fort Hunt Road
• Franconia Road

More than 3,500 signs have been picked up on Richmond Highway since January, Weyant said. And while specific rankings aren’t kept for which roads have the most illegal signs, Weyant said that Richmond Highway has one of the higher volumes in the county.