Encino Sign Controls Rejected : Area Will Instead Get Priority in Enforcement of Citywide Law

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday ordered city inspectors to enforce new citywide sign restrictions first on Ventura Boulevard in Encino but refused to adopt tougher controls for the area.

The tougher controls--championed by Encino homeowners and the area’s councilman, Marvin Braude, but opposed by the billboard industry--were defeated in a vote of 7 to 6. Eight votes were required for approval.

Although refusing to adopt the proposed Encino law immediately, the council agreed to reconsider it Jan. 7, 1987, after studying the effect of the new citywide ordinance on the San Fernando Valley community.

The council recently authorized the addition of eight inspectors to the existing three to enforce the new sign controls exclusively, according to Robert Harder, assistant chief of the Building and Safety Department’s building bureau.

Harder said it will be a month or two before inspectors will be hired and trained and can sweep through Encino. He said the inspectors will rely on complaints of illegally erected signs but will also look for violations of the law on their own.

Will Eliminate Many Signs

Councilman Howard Finn contended Wednesday that the new law, which took effect last Saturday, will eliminate many of the signs that homeowners have complained give Ventura Boulevard a Las Vegas look.

He cited Building and Safety Department estimates that 70% of the signs citywide have been erected illegally without required city permits. Those signs would have to come down unless they conform to the new law.

The law restricts the location and size of signs, and includes a requirement that average-size new billboards be 600 feet from other billboards, except at intersections, where up to four are permitted. Smaller billboards can be somewhat closer.

But Braude argued that the new law “doesn’t go far enough.” He contended that the law will allow construction of 60 billboards, twice the number that now stand along the 3 1/2 miles of the boulevard in Encino.

Cindy Miscikowski, Braude’s chief deputy, said the new law also will do nothing to reduce the “biggest and ugliest” signs because they have been erected legally with city permits.

The proposed Encino law would have banned large new billboards. It also would have forced the removal within five years of about 600 of the 1,500 smaller signs on Ventura Boulevard, including ones that are now legal.

As he did when the Planning and Environment Committee chaired by Finn last week recommended shelving of the Encino ordinance, Braude on Wednesday accused his colleagues of buckling under to pressure from the billboard industry, a major contributor to their campaigns.

“You’re fearful of the billboard industry,” he told them.

The industry lobbied heavily against the proposed Encino law, fearing that it would lead to a billboard ban along the length of Ventura Boulevard, a lucrative area for billboard companies.

Braude also lashed out at Finn for “condemning my constituents as elitists” for seeking tougher controls.

Voting for the tougher controls were Braude, Ernani Bernardi, John Ferraro, Joy Picus, Joel Wachs and Mike Woo.

Opposed were Finn, Richard Alatorre, Dave Cunningham, Robert Farrell, Joan Milke Flores, Gilbert Lindsay and Pat Russell.

Councilmen Hal Bernson and Zev Yaroslavsky were not present for the roll call.