Outdoor Advertising

Los Angeles would outlaw new digital billboards and slash the size of all new commercial signs under a proposed ordinance intended to end proliferation of outdoor advertising that critics say have overwhelmed neighborhoods and L.A.'s busy roadways. Overall, the space allowed for new signage would shrink to one-quarter of what is currently permitted.

Los Angeles city fire inspectors said Wednesday that they have ordered the owners of at least 20 properties to remove supergraphics, the controversial multistory vinyl or plastic images stretched across the sides of buildings. Over the last month, 15 of the oversized images were removed after property owners were informed that their supergraphics posed a fire hazard, inspectors said. More than 100 other supergraphics are still under investigation.

When Los Angeles tried to crack down on billboards in 2002, politicians agreed that there was at least one place where oversized signs could keep going up: Hollywood. Even as they attempted to ban new outdoor advertising in much of the city, officials said Hollywood, with its noisy nightspots and gawking tourists, was a good fit for colorful pitches for soda, cologne, movies and alcohol.

The mysterious felling of roughly two dozen trees near city billboards has provoked finger pointing between state transportation officials and an advertising firm, and added fuel to a heated debate involving outdoor advertising in Los Angeles. Vandals apparently used chain saws to cut back the trees, which had been planted along the 10 and 405 freeways under a California Department of Transportation landscaping initiative.

To find ground zero of L.A's outdoor advertising wars, a good place to start is the Los Angeles City Council's 5th District -- or more specifically, a two-mile stretch of Westwood Boulevard. Your first stop would be Westwood at Wilshire Boulevard, where supergraphics -- large vinyl images -- are stretched across opposite sides of a 12-story medical building.

It's remarkable, the issues that generate political controversy in this city. The school district puts new classroom buildings right up against major freeways, even after a devastating USC study linking highway pollution to stunted lung growth in children, and no one bats an eye. Gang violence flares in northeast L.A., and the anxiety gripping certain blocks barely registers in the rest of the city.

A plan for placing 40,000 square feet of billboards and other outdoor signs on the Los Angeles Convention Center was approved Thursday by the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, despite a request from City Atty. Carmen Trutanich to delay the vote. Trutanich sent the commission a letter earlier this week saying he wanted two weeks to review the proposal, which would allow more than a dozen billboards to face the congested 10 and 110 freeway interchange on the edge of downtown.

Newly elected Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich has sent a blistering letter to city planners who approved a billboard plan over his objections last week, stating that by "acting in haste, for no apparent reason," they "undermined and jeopardized" the work of his office.

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.

A judge said Friday that he plans to invalidate a 2006 settlement between the city of Los Angeles and two companies, CBS Outdoor and Clear Channel Outdoor, that allowed them to convert 840 conventional billboards to a digital format. Former City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo negotiated the agreement with the two companies after they sued the city over its 2002 billboard regulations. Digital signs soon began popping up all over Los Angeles, infuriating homeowner groups and becoming a key issue in this year's city elections.