American senators and congressmen were among those to sign the petition in support of McGuire's Irish pub in Florida, after a complaint from a customer led Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation to issue an order for the signs to be removed.

The offending signs are designed in such a way that the word 'Ladies' is the most obvious word on the sign for the gentlemen's toilet, and viceversa. There is smaller print on each sign which explains that it is actually a toilet for the opposite sex.

The controversy over the signs erupted when a man named Chris Hall filed a complaint saying his 15-year-old daughter failed to read the small print, and walked into the men's toilet. Hall said she was in a cubicle in the room when a "college-age" man wandered in and opened it.

There was another twist when a US newspaper contacted Chris Hall to speak to him about the incident, and Hall maintained he had made no such complaint, that he didn't even have a daughter, and that he hadn't been to McGuire's in over two years.

The manager of McGuire's, Billy Martin, told the Sunday Tribune this weekend that it appeared the petition had had an impact on the authorities, and that the pub would be allowed to put the signs back up.

"Democracy won this one, " he said. "People were very fond of those signs and didn't want to see them go. And now we're busier than ever. We have double the normal amount of people in for lunch today."