FALLBROOK -- A towering, brightly lighted billboard just east of Interstate 15 near Lake Rancho Viejo will be removed after creating a stir with local residents and officials, who said they were caught off guard when the sign advertising Pala Casino lit up earlier this month.

"I'll tell you what, I went to bed in paradise and woke up in Las Vegas," said Steve Gallo, who lives less than a mile from the sign. "It was remarkably bright."

San Diego County code enforcement chief Pam Elias said Tuesday that the sign, which broadcasts using light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, was in violation of zoning ordinances on the property, a parcel owned by the Pala band of Mission Indians.

"It will have to be physically removed from the site," Elias said Tuesday, adding that the power was switched off to the billboard over the weekend. "I contacted the tribe as soon as we started receiving complaints about it. They are in the process of taking it down. … The sign actually belongs to the sign company."

Howard Dickstein, an attorney for the Pala tribe, declined to say which company had been hired to install the sign, or how much the misstep will cost the tribe.

"It was a misunderstanding as to who had jurisdiction on the land, and the legality of the sign," said Dickstein, adding that the tribe has been quick to comply with county requests to disable the billboard. "In any case, I think, neither the sign company nor the tribe intentionally violated county ordinances."

Intentional or not, the move was unpopular with neighbors, who said the behemoth poker and buffet advertisements that changed every few seconds lit up the streets of Lake Rancho Viejo like a full moon.

"I called the county, I called the casino, I called code enforcement and the supervisor's office," said Gallo, who got on the phone as soon as he laid eyes on the billboard.

While Gallo said the light did not keep him awake because his room faces away from the sign, other residents had worse luck.

"I have neighbors who complained about the light coming in their windows and disturbing the tranquility of their backyards," he said. "It faces right down the center of our street."

While county officials did not have the exact measurements of the sign, it reaches at least 100 feet into the air beside the interstate, and had several hundred square feet of vibrant display on both sides.

Eileen Delaney, who serves on the Fallbrook Planning Group, said that the leaders of several homeowners associations attended the group's June 15 meeting to ask whether there was anything the advisory panel could do about the sign.

"It was completely unpermitted, totally in violation of Fallbrook's design guidelines and the I-15 design guidelines," said Delaney.

"I got numerous irate phone calls from people -- 'How did you let this happen? What's the deal with this?' I was totally surprised. Then I took a ride out there, and went, 'Oh, my gosh.'"

There is a series of lighted billboards in Rainbow just south of the Riverside County line that advertise various casinos and businesses, but the Pala sign was the brightest between Temecula and Escondido, several residents said.

"I do have to say that I'm very pleased the county got on it immediately, and that the tribe agreed to remove" the billboard, Delaney said. "That was the right thing to do."

Dickstein, the Pala attorney, also rebuffed rumors that other signs would appear in the same valley, where the only light comes from the Lake Rancho Viejo neighborhood and a small group of businesses on the opposite side of the freeway.

"Pala has nothing to do with any other signs in that area, on land where signs are not clearly allowed," he said.

Call staff writer Tom Pfingsten at 760-740-3516.