If you have ever driven down the strip in Las Vegas, you know it can be dangerous. People are crossing the street wherever they feel like it, traffic is often bumper to bumper and the distractions drivers face … well, it’s Vegas … they are everywhere.

From strictly a public safety point of view, Vegas could use an ordinance that bans LED signs, especially the ones that flash on and off and stream rapidly across storefronts. But, banning LED signs in Vegas would be like banning wedding chapels; the city just wouldn’t function without them.

Walhalla, S.C., however, is a long way from Vegas. Walhalla bans LED signs.

One can reasonably question whether the city needs to outlaw LED signs for safety reasons, but there can be no argument that if the law says LED signs are illegal, then the law needs to be applied uniformly.

Corner Technologies owner Gareth Jones has a valid argument that his business on Main Street in Walhalla should not be singled out for enforcement simply because it is on a busy road.

The city either bans LED signs or it doesn’t.

• If Walhalla only wants to enforce the ordinance when the signs in question are at well-traveled intersections, then the law needs to stipulate what the setbacks will be.

• If it only wants to ban LED signs that flash on and off, the ordinance needs to stipulate that.

• If the city only wants to ban LED signs that flash at well-traveled intersections, then the law needs to say that.

Selective enforcement just doesn’t work.

In all honesty — given the survival rate of local businesses faced with big box competition, over-regulation and economic recession — solutions, not a summons, might be in order.