Ban Billboard Blight Protecting the visual environment of Los Angeles

Clear Channel digital billboard at intersection of Silverlake Blvd. & Effie St.

The digital billboard in Silverlake that caused a community uproar when it first appeared two years ago has been turned off—at least for now.  The electronic, jumbotron-like sign is in the district of L.A. City Council President Eric Garcetti, who has publicly stated in the past that the intensely bright, rapidly changing ads are out of place in the small commercial area closely surrounded by single-family homes and apartment houses.

Read More…

Posted under Billboards, CBS Outdoor, Clear Channel, Digital Billboards, L.A. City Government

After a federal court judge ruled two years ago that Los Angeles couldn’t ban advertising signs on private property if it allowed the same kind of signs in bus shelters and other pieces of “street furniture,”  the company that sued the city filed a nearly identical claim against the city of San Francisco, which also bans signs on private property but has a street furniture program.

Read More…

Posted under Billboards, Fuel Outdoor, Street Furniture

(Update: “Sign Bandit” interviewed by L.A. Weekly)

Numerous mini-billboards belonging to Fuel Outdoor were tagged with “Illegal Sign” notices overnight on major streets in West L.A., three days after they first appeared on signs in the Venice area.   The persons responsible–called “renegade sign bandits” by a building department spokesperson–haven’t identified themselves or made any kind of public statement about their activities.   The official-looking notices are apparently intended to call attention to the fact that the Fuel Outdoor signs were all erected without required city permits, but still remain on city streets despite the fact that the company has lost its legal challenges to the city’s sign ordinance.

For more, click here.

Posted under Billboards, Fuel Outdoor, L.A. City Government

Billboard directly across the street from an elementary school and charter high school in a neighborhood with active gangs

Back in 2005, protests by parents and community leaders in a gang-ridden area of  L.A. resulted in the removal of billboard ads depicting the rapper 50 Cent brandishing a gun in an ad for the movie, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’”.  Five years later, billboards and supergraphic signs around the city continue to display outsize ads with such depictions, sometimes right next-door to schools and in neighborhoods suffering from gun violence.

Read More…

Posted under Billboards, Clear Channel, L.A. City Government, Lamar Advertising, Supergraphics

Our friends at the interesting and informative urban blogs LAist and Curbed LA have reported on the apparent posting of faux-official “illegal sign” notices on a number of illegal movie-poster-style signs owned by Fuel Outdoor.   See Activists Do Their Own Guerrilla Enforcement of Illegal Billboards and Venice Ads Hit.

Read More…

Posted under Billboards, Fuel Outdoor, L.A. City Government

Left, graffiti on freeway mural; right, signs erected without permits or inspections

What is the difference between those who spray paint gang slogans and other kinds of graffiti on public walls and companies that put up illegal billboards and supergraphic signs?  What is the difference, fundamentally, between graffiti and illegal outdoor advertising?   Both make a claim on public space, saying “Look at this!” without observing any laws or considering that citizens might deserve a voice in what they’re forced to see when they drive, walk, or otherwise experience their urban environment.
Read More…

Posted under Billboards, Freeway Billboards, Fuel Outdoor, L.A. City Government, Supergraphics

Three days after handing down a campaign finance decision that rocked the political world, the U.S. Supreme Court handed anti-billboard activists a major victory by refusing to review a lower court’s ruling that California could legally bar off-site commercial advertising along sections of the state’s freeways and highways.

Read More…

Posted under Billboards, Freeway Billboards, L.A. City Government

Federal Judge Audrey Collins

More than a dozen sign company lawsuits against the city of Los Angeles have been stayed by U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins pending a decision by the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals on her ruling that the city’s 2002 ban on off-site advertising signs is unconstitutional.

Read More…

Posted under Billboards, L.A. City Government, Skytag, Supergraphics, World Wide Rush

The site, above left, on the ocean side of the Venice Boardwalk, could get advertising “kiosks” like the one at right if the city succeeds in exempting street furniture from guidelines set forth by the California Coastal Commission, which prohibit billboards and other forms of off-site advertising in the coastal zone.

Read More…

Posted under Billboards, JC Decaux, L.A. City Government, Street Furniture

The city of Los Angeles has some of the country’s most polluted air.  It also has some of its most congested traffic.  To address these problems, billions are being spent on mass transit projects, and various schemes are underway to shorten automobile trips and encourage residents to car pool and limit non-essential driving.   So how should we regard the rapidly-growing phenomenon of mobile billboards mounted on trucks and trailers and driven through the streets or left sitting for days in highly sought-after parking spaces?  As inevitable manifestations of commercial enterprise, or as destructive, anti-social assaults on our shared public spaces that ought to banned forthwith?

Read More…

Posted under Billboards, L.A. City Government