Mystic — The Stonington Zoning Board of Appeals on Tuesday night unanimously rejected an appeal by the owners of a Mystic bakery who charged that the town issued them a cease-and-desist order for having an illegal sandwich board sign in front of their business because they are of Iranian heritage.

Mercedeh Pourmoghadam and Massoud Kalkhoran, who own the Lighthouse Bakery at 21 East Main St., allege that Zoning Enforcement Officer Candace Palmer targets minority-owned businesses such as theirs, while not citing others for illegal signs.

The couple, who has filed a complaint with the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities and say police are intimidating them, announced at Tuesday’s ZBA hearing that they have “boxes of evidence” against the town and have asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate their treatment.

The board, though, focused its decision Tuesday on whether the sandwich board sign the couple places on the sidewalk violates town signage regulations and whether Palmer acted correctly in issuing the cease-and-desist order.

Town Attorney Tom Londregan, who represented Palmer at Tuesday’s ZBA hearing, told the board that the portable A-frame sign is illegal under the regulations and does not fall under any of the exceptions for community events, seasonal agricultural businesses, directional signs of no more than 4 square feet and incidental signs of less than 3 square feet such as menus posted on the side of a restaurant.

Pourmoghadam and Kalkhoran have maintained the sign is directional and incidental and therefore should be allowed.

But even if it was deemed to be one of those, Londregan said it would still be illegal.

That’s because Kalkhoran's estimate of the sign’s size puts it between 8 and 12 square feet.

It also has advertising on it, which is not allowed on directional signs and is not near the entrance to the bakery, which is required for incidental signs.

The sign, which has an arrow pointing down the driveway to the bakery, advertises “Breakfast sandwich coffee lunch special soup & sandwich.”

Londregan also stated that neither Palmer nor the town targets minority-owned businesses as alleged by Pourmoghadam and Kalkhoran, who have charged the town has not taken action against others with similar signs.

Londregan presented the board with examples of more than 20 other instances over the past three years in which Palmer cited other businesses for illegal signs, many of them of the A-frame variety.

“Everyone is treated the same. All violators are treated the same,” he said, adding that the examples he provided “dispel any notion that any ethnic group or race was targeted.”

Pourmoghadam told the commission that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision (Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona) means that municipalities cannot regulate the content of signs such as the one they were cited for.

“Your regulations are illegal,” she told the board, demanding to know why planning officials had not told her about the case.

Both Londregan and Ed O’Connell, the attorney who assisted the appeals board Tuesday night, said the Supreme Court case does not apply because it dealt with a First Amendment issue.

The town of Gilbert was trying to limit the time period a church could advertise its services and also allowed other types of signs to be larger than the church sign.

Earlier this year the couple also charged that when Palmer visited the bakery to inspect it before issuing a certificate of occupancy in 2012, she brought along former Town Engineer Larry Sullivan, who they said Palmer introduced as the town sheriff before making racist remarks to them.

Londregan presented the board with a sworn affidavit by Sullivan in which he said neither he nor Palmer indicated he was a police officer and she never made any racist comments.

j.wojtas@theday.com

Twitter: @joewojtas