Guest Editorial: How to understand the Lenny Amicola case, a legal explainer.

Three documents are key to understanding the legal nuances of this controversy. Our contributor does a deep dive into all of them and adds important context.

by Paul Steinberg

Lenny Amicola talks to Westchester News12

The case against Lenny Amicola has gotten much coverage and comment on traditional and social media. To understand the case, there are three key documents, all of which are available online and discussed below.

Village Code Section 230-44(M)(5)

This code section governs outdoor displays put up for more than 45 days. It is broad in the definition of what type of display; everything from banners to balloons is covered. It is narrow in scope, covering business advertising. This is a critical distinction because a municipality has wide latitude in regulating commercial speech under US Supreme Court decisions. Note that because the village code provision covers “advertising” it is likely Constitutional on its face. The controversy arises because the municipality is using the code to regulate political speech.

Joshua Subin letter of August 5, 2025

Village attorney Subin wrote a letter to Amicola’s attorney (Roseann Schuyler). In support of the village position, Subin cites two cases. The first case is Luce v Town of Campbell, and the second case is CBS Outdoor v Village of Plainfield. Both of the cases are from the federal 7th Circuit, which means they are not controlling in New York (which is in the 2nd Circuit).

In Luce, the citizens hung a banner from a pedestrian bridge overpass on Interstate 90: “HONK TO IMPEACH OBAMA.” The town passed a law prohibiting hanging all signs/flags/banners from the overpass, or within 100 feet of the end of the overpass. The court divided the analysis into two parts.

As to the sign over I-90, the court used common sense. It noted that up to 29,000 vehicles per day passed at 65 mph under the pedestrian bridge. In such a case there is an obvious traffic safety issue with a banner hung over an Interstate.

As to the part of law regarding the 100 foot zone on each side of I-90, the court made clear that such a law was presumptively unconstitutional. For technical reasons, the court sent this matter back to the lower court to be ruled upon. The court said, “Time, place, and manner restrictions must serve a ‘significant government interest’ and be no more extensive than necessary.”

Luce is in line with mainstream sign regulation jurisprudence. Croton cited Amicola under a code provision regulating temporary speech along a village roadway. Croton’s attorney defended this by citing a case involving traffic safety on an Interstate highway. This was the best case Croton could find. The case actually supports Amicola, whose display is on the side of a village road where the speed limit is 25 mph.

Luce held that “It does not take a double-blind empirical study, or a linear regression analysis, to know that the presence of overhead signs and banners is bound to cause some drivers to slow down in order to read the sign before passing it.” This raises an important question: How is the Amicola sign a traffic safety hazard but the “Hometown Hero” and Croton Artist banners are not? Banners put up by the village actually do overhang the highway, and the lettering is much harder to read.

Village Attorney Subin cites CBS Outdoor in a footnote of his letter, but this may be the most important sentence. Subin cites it for the proposition that the “ordinance [is] still valid even if it only regulated that single sign, since traffic safety and aesthetic concerns were legitimate state interests.”

This should concern all Croton residents. For five years Mayor Pugh has claimed that there is no targeting of a single sign and yet the Village Attorney is asserting the legal right for the village to do precisely that. Even before Croton issued the violation to Amicola, the village told one resident that there will be an upcoming code revision with carve-outs for not-for-profits. On September 9, the village said that it will “suspend enforcement of the section of the Village Code at issue until the Code is amended.”

It appears that Croton’s Board of Trustees will try and gerrymander the village code. Such an attempt would run afoul of Reed v Town of Gilbert, where Justice Thomas noted that a law targeting speakers by class were problematic: “Laws favoring some speakers over others demand strict scrutiny when the legislature’s speaker preference reflects a content preference.” What this means is that if Croton implements one code provision for the Rotary or Lions or AYSO but another provision for other non-commercial speech, it will be subject to “strict scrutiny” which as a practical matter means the village will likely not even get past the federal trial court.

Statement from the Village (Sept. 9, 2025)

The Village stated that there were “17 non-compliant locations.” Mayor Pugh himself has said this, but to date he has not provided the 17 locations. This is information that is central to understanding the Amicola matter. It is also publicly-disclosable information. If the village continues to not release the 17 locations, ultimately the village will be compelled to do so in a court proceeding.

Croton may constitutionally regulate signage (including flags) for aesthetic and/or traffic safety reasons. Commercial speech is an area where the village has wide latitude, so a sign at the dummy light advertising vitamin supplements can be ordered taken down. But political speech is a different matter.

In the past, some courts would distinguish campaign signs from “pure” political speech, and display was often limited to a specified period prior to and after the election. This is disfavored nowadays, but Amicola’s sign would be “pure” political speech because it does not advocate for a particular candidate (Trump is constitutionally prohibited from running again).

In the Sept. 9 statement, Croton admitted that Amicola is charged with “a non-safety related provision of the Village Code.”

This still leaves aesthetics as a basis for regulation. But the burden of proof is on the Village of Croton-on-Hudson to show a compelling government interest in regulating the Amicola sign. To date Mayor Pugh and Village Attorney Subin have not told us what the compelling interest is. If they ever get around to doing so, then and only then would a federal court get to the analysis of whether Croton’s alternative to Amicola’s existing display is “no more extensive than necessary.” That is not news to Mayor Pugh—the standard is laid out in the same Luce decision cited by Attorney Subin.

When the first Amicola code Notice of Violation was issued five years ago, Amicola’s attorney sought assurances that there would not be another attempt. The village refused such assurance, and in 2025 it brought another action and once again dropped the matter on the eve of judicial oversight.

In legal lingo, that is known as “capable of repetition yet evading judicial review.” That is something which federal judges don’t look upon kindly, because it gives the municipality the ability to harass citizens and cost them time and money despite the municipality having no lawful basis for harassing the citizen. Mr. Amicola has now had to retain counsel twice in five years over the same matter, and yet the village will neither proceed to judicial review nor will it agree not to do this a third time. If Mayor Pugh and Village Attorney Subin don’t want to put this matter to bed, a federal judge may force them to do so.

But that is a story for another editorial.

Paul Steinberg is a long-time Croton resident and commenter on village affairs.

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