Store Owner Protest U.S. Foreign Aid With Controversial Sign

It’s a large sign taped to a store window at the corner of Portola and El Paseo in Palm Desert. Denise Roberg, the owner of Augusta restraurant and a clothing and art store next door, put up the hand made sign last week.

“I just got to a point where I had to say something,” said Roberg. Roberge is against a recent decision by countries in the G8, which the U.S. is a part of, to bankroll emerging democracies like Egypt and Tunisia with $20 billion.

The official name of the foreign aid is The Deauville Partnership. It started talk of the “Arab spring”.

“I just believe we should not be running around the world giving money away that we don’t have. I think we need to get out of Afghanistan and Iraq and stop giving money to Muslims that hate us,” said Roberg as she sat in her Palm Desert office.

Store owners near her business who didn’t want to go on camera told us they don’t mind the new sign and neither do other people.

“It’s an opportunity to put awareness out there to the people that don’t really follow it,” said Polly Leason, a Palm Desert resident. Her sister-in-law agrees with the message but not the placement, “I don’t live here but I wouldn’t like that sign in my window.”

Roberg says she isn’t going to take down the sign anytime soon. She plans to leave it up for the entire summer and take it down in the fall.

News Channel 3 is first to confirm Palm Desert may require Roberg to reduce the sign down to 25%of the window front for police safety reasons. The city won’t make her take it completely down.

“This clearly is not commercial. It’s expressing someone’s feeling. Whether you agree or disagree it is free speech.”

This isn’t Roberg only message. On another window she sounds off about her dislike for the cell phone company AT&T. That’s a whole different story.

Roberg plans to have a pro-America rally on her property this fall.