Outdoor Advertising

A billboard sponsored by residents and the police thanking the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for their work in a crime task force was unveiled this week near the LAPD's Rampart Division. Dubbed Operation CARE (Combined Agencies Resources Enforcement) the task force united federal, state and local agencies to combat violent gang and narcotics activity for 90 days in the Rampart area bounded by 3rd Street, 7th Street, Union Avenue and Alvarado Street.

The president of a homeowners group said members are pleased with a statement released this week by the Los Angeles city attorney's office that clarifies the law governing signs on public property. In a letter sent Tuesday to Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., Assistant City Atty. Anthony Saul Alperin said residents removing signs posted on public property such as lampposts, traffic signals, utility poles and trees could not be charged with theft.

Responding to complaints from businesses that the city's sign ordinance is too restrictive, the City Council this week decided to relax the regulations. The changes include: * Permitting internally lighted signs--the plastic, boxed kind commonly seen near malls-- everywhere except in the historic town center. The signs must be made of natural or natural-looking material and only the letters may be lit at night. * All lighted signs will now be allowed to stay on after closing hours.

Doing Lady Bird Johnson proud, Paramount, as part of a beautification effort, has declared its downtown a billboard-free zone. So far, six billboards on Lakewood and Paramount boulevards and Downey Avenue have been removed, three of them from the town's central intersection of Paramount and Rosecrans Avenue. Erected years ago on Metropolitan Transportation Authority rights of way, the billboards stood sentry over an evolving downtown. Two years ago the city identified six signs for removal.

Hundreds of plaintive slogans, some written in a childlike scrawl, are being displayed on billboards throughout Los Angeles County in a dramatic plea for help. They're part of a campaign by the Children's Bureau of Southern California, a nonprofit organization, to raise awareness about child abuse and encourage more adults to become foster parents.

The poignant message, written in a childlike scrawl on a billboard, is directed to those passing by a school playground in Anaheim: "No daddy . . . don't . . . you're hurting me. . . . Please stop. . . . No . . . stop it. . . . Don't." As part of a campaign to raise awareness of child abuse and recruit foster parents, the Children's Bureau of Southern California is posting the billboards in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Its goal is to eventually have 400 signs.

If a coastal city can be a magnet for advertisers--companies selling sunscreen, bottled water or pickup trucks--then the attraction would increase dramatically if several towns could package themselves as a single marketplace. That is the theory of the Orange Coast Marketing Coalition, which hopes to unite the county, state and five coastal cities as a marketing block to increase the local benefits when advertising space is sold on the beaches.

Questions over who should be allowed to rent advertising at baseball diamonds in Downey could spell an end to the traditional fund-raiser at two city high schools. Although the poster-size ads muster about $6,000 annually for sports programs at Warren and Downey high schools, school board members are considering banning them to satisfy residents and solve a dilemma over what constitutes legitimate advertising.

In a move to bring big business to a small town, the city of El Segundo has launched a five-month billboard campaign to draw attention to the seaside city's unique mix of business and small-town charm. Targeting small businesses within a 30-mile radius of El Segundo, billboards now appear in downtown Los Angeles, Culver City, West Los Angeles and the L.A. International Airport area, and display two messages: "El Segundo Is Like Mayberry.