(LibertySociety.com) – A California homeowner ran afoul of his HOA for displaying multiple Trump banners on the front porch of his Lodi home.
The Sunwest Homeowners Association ordered resident Paul Wood Bonilla to remove the banners, saying in a letter earlier this month that the three banners violated the three-square-foot rule laid out in the HOA’s Covenants Conditions and Restrictions.
Bonilla told KOVR that he considered trimming the size of the banners to keep them in place, explaining that Trump “took a bullet for me” and that he was going to show his support for Trump.
An attorney researched California law and discovered that state homeowner associations can require that signage at a home must not exceed nine square feet while banners, like those displayed by Bonilla, must not exceed 15 square feet.
Bonilla suggested that nobody would have complained if banners were in support of Kamala Harris.
However, Sunwest HOA senior manager Liz Franco told KOVR that the HOA didn’t instruct Bonilla to remove the banners because of their political message. She said it didn’t matter if the banners were in support of Trump, the HOA had “certain restrictions” homeowners must abide by to live there.
Franco said that after she spoke with the HOA’s board of directors, the board agreed to a compromise that would allow Bonilla to keep one of the banners in place. She cited an appellate court decision in 2008 that ruled that the law restricting the number of real estate signs could apply to non-commercial signage as well.
A local attorney told KOVR that the appellate court ruling did not apply in Bonilla’s case and that the Sunwest Homeowners Association was wrong to order the banners to be removed.
Bonilla’s neighbors began hanging Trump banners at their homes as well to show their support for Bonilla.
The Trump supporter removed two of the banners and kept one in place but he told KOVR that he planned to speak with a lawyer to see if he could keep all three on display.
Bonilla said if the lawyer said the HOA was right, he would comply. However, he added that if he had legal grounds, he would fight the decision.
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