--- title: "Ogunquit vs. the Six-Foot Roosters, Act II: The Fines Return, and So Do the Lawyers" description: "A $750 penalty, an unfulfilled disability variance, and a First Amendment firm circling Maine’s most famous painted birds" author: "Sterling Vance" published: 2026-09-28T09:00:00Z modified: 2026-09-28T14:18:57Z url: https://rews.cc/a/ogunquit-vs-the-six-foot-roosters-act-ii-the-fines-return-an-807082 language: en tags: ["law", "zoning", "autism", "free-speech", "maine", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Ogunquit vs. the Six-Foot Roosters, Act II: The Fines Return, and So Do the Lawyers *A $750 penalty, an unfulfilled disability variance, and a First Amendment firm circling Maine’s most famous painted birds* By Sterling Vance · September 28, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/ogunquit-vs-the-six-foot-roosters-act-ii-the-fines-return-an-807082 ## In brief - Ogunquit issued a $750 civil penalty on Sept. 17 over the rooster display, giving the Leblancs two days to pay - A disability variance allows two roosters attached to the staircase railing; the birds remain chained, not attached - The town cites a 2025 news story suggesting the roosters advertised the restaurant; Dave Leblanc says he was joking - Institute for Justice lawyer Daniel Woislaw contacted the family; the pro bono firm has three cases before the Supreme Court - Sara Leblanc decided to fight the fine: “Someone’s got to stand up” You remember the roosters. Ogunquit, Maine — the painted six-foot birds planted outside the home of Sara and Dave Leblanc, restaurant people, adoptive parents of Pyper, erected in the name of autism awareness. By early August the saga had gone so gloriously viral that painted roosters had become a global emblem of solidarity, with copies popping up on lawns as far away as New Zealand. CBS devoted more than four heartwarming minutes to it. “This is a therapeutic rooster,” one supporter told the cameras. Round one, per the Boston Globe’s tally, ended in an armed compromise. The town had fined the Leblancs nearly $1,000 for illegal signage — the signage being the birds — and the Leblancs had paid. They appealed to the Zoning Board of Appeals and were granted a “disability variance”: two roosters could stay on the home side of their mixed-use building, provided they were properly attached to the staircase railing. Provided. Attached. Here the matter has entered what might generously be called the weeds — because the roosters are not attached to anything. They are, at present, simply chained in place. And because well-wishers keep showing up and depositing smaller roosters on the property — one stood four feet tall, Dave said, others shorter — the yard on any given day hosts an entire unregulated flock. The town of Ogunquit, for its part, is not amused, and the town has a theory. Code enforcement officer Tyler McOsker has pointed to a May 25, 2025, Portsmouth Herald story noting that local rules let business owners fly only American and rainbow flags — no standard “Open” signs — and that the newly restaurant-owning Leblancs had “took a more creative approach” with six-foot chickens out front. Evidence, in other words, that the birds were commerce in poultry drag. Dave says the reporter misunderstood his joking remarks. Town officials have offered no further comment — not that it has spared them the mail. “I hope karma hits your family,” one letter in round one began. “Your persecution of this family … is despicable,” said another. In mid-September Sara took to Facebook — “For those of you that are inquiring if the code enforcement officer and town manager have left us alone yet …” — and posted the town’s latest letter. “Despite our numerous communications … ordering you to remove the prohibited signage … said signage remains in place,” it read. “I have determined the violation to be a short-term risk or nuisance, and I have imposed a $750 Civil Penalty for failure to remove the illegal signage.” The letter was dated Sept. 17. The Leblancs had two days to pay. And here the story turns. Dave, reached by phone on Sept. 24 after the lunch rush at The Omelette Factory, told the Globe he had been all set to pay the $750 — write the check, close the file — when a lawyer from the Institute for Justice reached out, having seen the saga on Facebook. The Institute for Justice is not your average letter-writing outfit: the firm works pro bono, counts three cases currently before the Supreme Court of the United States, and exists to fight what it sees as abuses of governmental power. “My uncle is autistic,” the lawyer, Daniel Woislaw, wrote to the Leblancs, “and I find your story very touching and inspiring. Keep up the good fight … and I’d love to see if we can help in any way.” The firm has not yet decided whether to take the case, Woislaw said — but, he added, many of its cases begin with exactly this species of dispute. “We see this at the state and federal level, too. They try to stop your speech by calling it commercial, and because you own a tangentially connected business, you’ve therefore lost your free speech rights.” The firm has feathers in this fight before. It represented Leavitt’s Country Bakery in North Conway, New Hampshire, where town officials had decreed that a vast, cheerful mural of doughnuts and pastries — painted by local high school students, no less — was an oversized sign and had to be modified or removed. After years of brawling, a US district court judge ruled in 2025 that the town’s attempted removal was “unconstitutional.” “Sometimes when a code enforcement officer sinks their teeth into something,” Woislaw observed, “they absolutely refuse to let go.” So: Sara read the room, consulted her resolve, and told Dave not to pay. “Someone’s got to stand up,” she said. The roosters, meanwhile, remain chained but emphatically present, the flock keeps growing, and somewhere in the machinery of a small Maine resort town, a seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar invoice sits unpaid — pending.