A business owner in Wood Village is being fined $3,000 for illegal signs promoting his businesses, including two blonde robotic mannequins who promote his cannabis dispensary, according to The Outlook.

Aaron Michelsen, owner of NW Compassion Medical Center and Fabulicious Cupcakes, located in the same building, told The Outlook that he is being unfairly targeted because he owns the town's only dispensary.

Michelsen was fined $1,000 for each of his robotic mannequins, which were dressed in marijuana leaf-decorated clothing and blonde wigs and waved signs that read, "Got Chronic." He was also fined for a sign mounted on the roof of his cupcake shop for an additional $1,000.

The fines are related to a newly-revised Wood Village sign code that bans "portable signs."

Michelsen told The Outlook that he believes this is a pattern of retaliation against his business from the city. In February of 2015, a city utility worked named Randy Lauer wrote a one-star review of his business, which said, "Pot and cupcakes might mix for some (insert pun here) but not for me. Terrible business practice."

Lauer is now a city councilor in Troutdale who The Outlook reports, "often cast himself as an opponent of recreational cannabis, and has posted less-than-flattering comments about NW Compassion on several occasions."

"In Wood Village, you're not free to promote yourself, which means you're not free to run your own business," Michelsen told The Outlook.

The city said it treats all businesses equally.

"That code is being uniformly applied regardless of the business type," Wood Village City Manager Bill Peterson told The Outlook. "We are not singling out any business type."

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052

lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker