Several small businesses in Wicker Park recently received a crash course in Chicago's confounding sign regulations when the city ticketed them for non-structural signs on their windows. These were not new window signs—in some cases they'd been up for years. But the citations came out of the blue, causing uncertainty and concern throughout the Chicago small-business community.

Business owners want to obey the law. But many here are in violation of small and non-intuitive parts of the sign code because they must navigate their way through a labyrinth of rules and regulations to display signs on their windows. These confusing regulations deviate far from what most people would expect, often forcing an entrepreneur to spend too much time figuring out how to legally display a simple sticker, to the detriment of her business.

Read more at Crain's Chicago Business