The city council in Washington, D.C., is joining the fight to keep Donald Trump out of the city because of comments he made previously about illegal immigrants.
On Friday, Councilman Charles Allen sent a letter to the D.C. Department of Regulatory and Consumer Affairs asking the agency to review whether a sign on Trump’s newest hotel venture in the city is legal.
Trump is in the midst of renovating the old U.S. Post Office building, which is about two blocks from the White House, into a luxury hotel complex. On the front of the renovation project is a giant sign that reads “Coming in 2016 … TRUMP.”
The city councilman wants to know if the sign is still legal since permits for the project were obtained before Trump announced his presidential campaign.
“He is now an official and partisan candidate, which I believe warrants a review of the permit’s appropriateness,” Allen wrote. “In the event permits were not properly obtained, I would expect that failure to be addressed immediately.”
According to Allen, the sign on the future Trump hotel is too similar to the logo Trump chose for his presidential campaign and the hotel signage could be “easily interpreted as campaign signage.”
In his letter, Allen said the color scheme, font and lettering are “substantially similar” to signage used by Trump’s presidential campaign, and “his recent offensive and demeaning comments about the immigrant community aside, I believe it is inappropriate to allow signage permitted purportedly for commercial use to be used to advertise a candidate’s campaign.”
You be the judge:
Trump 2016 poster
Sign on Trump’s new hotel
A representative from the D.C. DCRA did not return request for comment for this story.
The sign in question provided the backdrop for a protest Thursday in which D.C. politicians and activists told Trump he was not welcome in the city.
D.C.’s shadow Rep. Franklin Garcia along with shadow Senators Paul Strauss and Michael Brown spoke to the crowd in front of the sign condemning comments Trump previously made calling illegal immigrants “killers” and “rapists.”
One local union leader even blamed Trump for the shooting in Charleston that left nine people dead.
“Donald Trump, with his hate speech, lends legitimacy to assassins like the young man who walked into a South Carolina church and murdered all those people,” said John Boardman, executive secretary of the Unite Here Local 25 union of hotel and restaurant workers. “When crazy people hear hate speech, that’s the response.”
Trump and his company broke ground on the project two years ago with overwhelming support from city leaders and top officials. Mayor Muriel Bowser even helped Trump by picking up a golden shovel and posing for photos.
Thursday, Bowser called Trump’s comments about illegal immigrants “idiotic and offensive,” but didn’t go so far as to rescind her support for the hotel.
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