Less than a week ago, Trutanich secured the removal of an eight-story supergraphic on Hollywood Boulevard. The defendant in that case, Kayvan Setareh, spent three days in jail with bail set at $1 million before he agreed to remove the sign in exchange for having his bail reduced to $100,000. He has still admitted no wrongdoing.
I railed against the fact that directly across the street there was another supergraphic that I felt they had blindly ignored - saying I felt it was a gross abuse of power to make a $1 million dollar example of a man while other signs were blatantly obvious. Well... On March 7th (just in time for the Oscars) five more supergraphics were removed from two buildings on Hollywood Boulevard in City Attorney Carmen Trutanich's ongoing battle against the purveyors of the huge ads. I would like to add for clarification purposes that it was the pair of buildings on Hollywood Boulevard that sit directly across from the Kodak Theater, where the Academy Awards were handed out on Sunday (ohhhh how coincidental! Gotta crack down
THERE so those blasted signs aren't visible on camera!!!! "WHAT?!?!? 3 more supergraphics two blocks from here? Who
CARES man! Get these signs down
NOW!") . Perhaps I am the only person who finds this beyond ironic, but seriously.... this crack down still seems highly convenient. It just seems to me that they really didn't want Godzilla sized signs stealing the limelight. In any case.... moving on...
A judge issued arrest warrants Tuesday for the four people accused by Trutanich of putting up the five illegal signs at 6800 Hollywood Blvd. and 6810-6820 Hollywood Blvd. The city's sign law bans the installation of new supergraphics, or vinyl images draped across the side of a building.
Deputy City Atty. Spencer Hart said a lawyer for two of the defendants, Alexander Kouba and France Luanghy, had notified the city that the signs would come down while the criminal case was pending. Hart said the signs posed a threat to public safety because they were installed without permits or city inspections.
Kouba and Luanghy each posted $100,000 bail Thursday. A third defendant, Thomas Curtin, posted $100,000 bail Friday.
Steve Madison, an attorney for Kouba and Luanghy, said the signs were "perfectly legal and safe."
"Given that the city attorney has taken the position that not only are they unlawful but criminal, we thought the prudent thing to do in the meantime would be to take them down," Madison said.
By Saturday morning, all five signs had been removed. Madison said the clients, which include the billboard company known as Community Redevelopment Assn., would keep fighting the charges.
For more information: david.zahniser@latimes.comOn a happier note, not all cities have banned supergraphics :-P and most of the ones that have, have yet to go to such expensive extremes to have them removed. In an earlier post, I broke out a list of where you could find the sign laws in each state for most cities. For your convenience, I will add a link
here for you. I urge anyone who wants to use signs, banners (ummm - supergraphics?), etc. to check the
state laws and local ordinances before putting anything out. And certainly make sure that the Academy Awards will NOT be hosted across the street :-)
Gwynn~
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