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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Great Sign Debate Rages on!


In March 2009, I brought you the news concerning the great sign debate in Los Angeles. Wednesday, March 18, 2009, a divided Los Angeles Planning Commission failed to overhaul the city's billboard law with some members saying a proposed sign ordinance grants too many exceptions to the outdoor advertising industry. The panel, which needed five votes to send a rewritten sign law to the City Council, deadlocked on a series of 4-3 votes. However, the Los Angeles Planning Commission re-voted Thursday, March 26, 2009 to recommend dramatically reworked restrictions on signs that would ban digital billboards and super graphics -- the vinyl signs stretched across the sides of buildings -- throughout most of the city. The commission voted 6 to 3 to forward the ordinance to the City Council.

The Great Sign Debate, for all intents and purposes, had ended. Well... then again...

As of February 22nd, 2010, Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich (who took office July 1 after promising during last year's election campaign that he would crack down on unpermitted billboards) launched a fresh assault against the outdoor advertising industry, announcing the filing of a lawsuit alleging that supergraphics were unlawfully installed on 12 buildings throughout the city.

The nuisance-abatement suit contends that multistory vinyl ads were placed illegally on the Sherman Oaks Galleria, the Howard Hughes Center in Westchester and other buildings in North Hollywood, Sherman Oaks and elsewhere.

The civil complaint filed Monday accuses outdoor advertising company World Wide Rush LLC and 26 associates, property owners and sign installers of putting up the massive posters in violation of a city council ban that aimed to stem the proliferation of supergraphics and digital billboards. The city's lawsuit names 27 defendants, including World Wide Rush, which already has a billboard case pending before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The company is seeking to strike down the city's ban on the installation of new supergraphics.

The complaint, which also alleges violations of California's Outdoor Advertising Act and other state laws and local ordinances, argues that supergraphic signs endanger the covered buildings' occupants, distract drivers and hurt the look of streets.

It seeks the signs' removal and damages that could total more than $10 million, as well an injunction prohibiting new signs from being installed.

Chief Assistant City Attorney Jeffrey Isaacs said Tuesday that the lawsuit, which lists 12 Los Angeles locations where illegal signs were allegedly installed, is part of his office's new strategy of aggressive sign law enforcement. Council members said they cast their votes for the blanket ban in hopes of heading off the types of legal challenges that bedeviled previous billboard regulations that carved out exceptions permitting some signs.

In one of those challenges, a federal judge agreed with an argument by World Wide Rush that the exceptions raised free speech concerns because they gave city officials too much leeway in deciding which signs to allow.

Officials are appealing that decision, which led to a contempt proceeding after officials issued citations against the company despite the permanent injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins in 2008 that protected 10 of the 12 locations named in this week's lawsuit. Isaacs said the latest lawsuit does not conflict with Collins' order because the supergraphics were installed after the city approved new ordinances governing outdoor advertising.

The city has been on the defensive for years as it has sought to regulate such advertisements, with an estimated 30 lawsuits challenging its sign laws and billboard inspection fees. Trutanich said he intends to seek fines of up to $5,000 for every day that an illegal supergraphic is on a building. In cases in which a sign is illegally placed next to a freeway, he also intends to seek a $10,000 fine, plus $100 for each day the sign is up. World Wide Rush urged the court to impose a $100,000 fine against the city, plus $10,000 for each day that Trutanich fails to drop the older case. The sign company also called for Collins to hold the city in criminal contempt and to order Trutanich, the L.A. City Council and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa into federal custody.

Now now boys! Maybe what we need here is a time out? I know it worked well when my son got all puffed up and bent out of shape. Of course, he was younger then. These days he knows how to hold his breath and count to ten before losing it. Not that I'm knocking either view point. Really, I swear I'm not. But gentlemen, for the love of peace, grow up and stop hacking at each other like little boys! Federal custody? Seriously? Over SIGNS? OK... I don't see it. But hey, I'm just a writer. With that in mind, I will quietly exit stage right and leave you two to duke it out.

Gwynn~

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