Ordinances

Alarmed at the possibility that its temporary ban on new outdoor advertising could be suspended or struck down in court, the Los Angeles City Council decided Wednesday to seek an emergency ordinance to prevent new digital billboards, supergraphics or certain other outdoor signs from going up. The council unanimously scheduled the vote on the new law for Friday.

Opening a new front in the city's efforts to reduce tagging, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved an ordinance requiring that all new homes include a finish that is resistant to spray paint unless the owners promise to remove any graffiti themselves. The measure, which was unanimously approved, extends a provision in the Los Angeles Municipal Code requiring that new commercial buildings and apartments be coated to a height of 9 feet with an impermeable material, such as ceramic tile, baked enamel or a chemical gloss.

Looking to protect more of its urban forest, the Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to draft a law allowing city inspectors to issue a $1,000 fine for anyone who illegally removes a street tree. Under the proposal, citations would be issued to those caught chopping down a tree without city permission in a median strip or on a parkway -- the area between the curb and the sidewalk, said Bill Robertson, general manager of the Bureau of Street Services. The fine also would apply to trees that are on private property but are protected by other city laws, including California bay, Western sycamore and Southern California black walnut trees.

At hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles, cash is changing hands, typically about $45 for an eighth of an ounce. The dispensary owners call it a donation because state law requires their stores to operate as nonprofit collectives. But their critics -- police, the district attorney and the newly elected city attorney -- insist that it's a sale and that marijuana sales remain illegal under state law. The debate turns largely on the interpretation of one sentence in the law, but it touches on one of the biggest concerns about dispensaries in Los Angeles: that the rapid proliferation of stores is being driven by people who are hoping to profit from the so-called Green Rush and who are buying rather than growing much of their cannabis.

The Los Angeles City Council moved Thursday to consider a controversial medical marijuana ordinance in early November, as a poll released by a national organization that supports marijuana legalization found that more than three-quarters of voters in the county want dispensaries regulated, not prosecuted and closed. The council action comes after a Superior Court judge ruled Monday that the city's moratorium on dispensaries had been illegally extended. With the city unable to enforce it, Councilman Greig Smith decided Thursday not to hold a hearing on the proposed ordinance in the Public Safety Committee, but to send it straight to the council.

The Los Angeles City Council voted Friday for an emergency measure that would prohibit new digital billboards, multistory supergraphics and certain signs that face freeways from being installed throughout the city. The ordinance was unanimously approved by the council out of fears that a federal judge could issue an injunction later this month blocking the city from enforcing an existing temporary ban on outdoor signs. The council has been passing temporary bans to give it time to rewrite its sign laws in a way that can withstand a legal challenge.

It's an evening tradition at Corona del Mar State Beach: At first, families descend on the 30 fire rings in the sand with bundles of wood, camping chairs and blankets, marshmallows and hot dogs. Then, as night falls, crowds of young people huddle around the glow of raging bonfires. When 10 p.m. hits, the police roll in to move them along. But that tradition could soon go up in smoke. Fed up with the late-night partying, smoke and mess left behind, Newport Beach officials may extinguish its dozens of fire pits once and for all. Councilwoman Nancy Gardner, who is spearheading the effort, said the nighttime scene at the fire pits at Big Corona, as the beach is known, has gotten out of control, with revelers burning huge nail-studded pallets and leaving hot coals in the sand.

Cheyenne, Wyo., City Councilman Jim Brown, thinking it was time his city joined the national movement to keep drivers from being distracted by their hand-held cellphones, steered an ordinance banning the practice into law last month. Now he's getting an earful from outraged Wyomingites. "We have the right to bear a cellphone," said M. Lee Hasenauer, 49, who collected more than 3,500 signatures for a petition against the ordinance. If the city clerk validates at least 2,800, officials must put the ordinance to a public vote or repeal it. If the effort -- dubbed "Can You Hear Me Now?"

The law of unintended consequences has seldom been more clearly illustrated than by the catfight unfolding from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Veterinarians who did not want cities meddling in their business persuaded the state Legislature to bar local governments from banning the practice of declawing cats -- beginning in 2010. Not wanting to be pushed around themselves, nearly half a dozen cities are rushing to prohibit the controversial procedure before the January deadline, striking a blow for rights both animal and municipal.

Advocates for day laborers and other low-wage workers are pushing for a new city law that would target unscrupulous employers by making wage theft a crime in the city of Los Angeles. They have found an ally in City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who plans to introduce a motion this morning directing the city attorney's office to write an ordinance that would criminalize nonpayment of wages. "People think that just because they pick up somebody on the street or at a day laborer center that they don't have the responsibility to pay them if they don't like the work," Alarcon said.