Why L.A.'s Latest Billboard Fix Won't Work

There are signs that the Los Angeles City Council's just-adopted billboard moratorium, purportedly designed to give officials time to crack down on the forest of 10,000 billboards. One possible result is that pro-billboard factions in City Hall now see an opening to wipe out a billboard ban currently on the books. (A draft of a new billboard ordinance proposed by city planners will be available tomorrow at a press conference held by California State Assemblyman Mike Feuer.) 


One stratagem city officials might use is a so-called "time, place, manner" restriction, that would end the 2002 Los Angeles billboard ban. Although the proponents of this idea claim it would make it easier for the Department of Building and Safety to punish renegade firms who stick illegal billboards willy-nilly around the city, it would also be a cave-in to the wave of ultra-bright digital billboards that are enraging Los Angeles residents.

A city planner told L.A. Weekly that such "time, place, manner" rules do not have the legal teeth to prevent the spread, citywide, of more than 800 LED billboards that were quietly approved by the City Council as part of a 2006 sweetheart deal with industry titans Clear Channel Outdoor, CBS Outdoor and Regency.

If city officials abandon the longtime billboard ban, Angelenos might still get a temporary reprieve from the hated digital ads, says Feuer. Last Friday Feuer proposed a statewide ban on LED advertisements on all California city and state roadways.

Feuer says his proposed statewide billboard ban would trump existing agreements and court rulings that are allowing the big outdoor advertisers to convert old traditional billboards into digital billboards that can be seen for up to four miles. Under his temporary ban, that would last until 2012, "Those billboards in Los Angeles could not be converted," he said.  

So will Feuer fix LA's billboard boondoggle? If history is any guide, the odds of it even passing the Senate are dim. An earlier bill authored by former State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is now a Los Angeles County Supervisor, and backed by L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, went nowhere in Sacramento, where billboard-industry money is spread around like a cold in kindergarten.