Flyer Furor : Many Use--Some Say Abuse--Ad Handbills

Hoping to expand his home-based surfboard repair business, a young San Diego entrepreneur took a marker and on a piece of paper promised: “Quality Without High Surfshop Prices.”

Alan, 23, then paid $17.95 to have 500 copies of his advertisement printed. He canvassed local beaches, plastering cars with the white sheets offering “Custom Surfboard Repair.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to make a buck,” he said. “Everybody does it. It’s capitalism in progress.”

Handbill distributors such as Alan are leaving their mark on windshields all over San Diego. The seemingly endless trail of promotions for everything from sex hot lines to Bible groups irritates many shopping mall managers, who blame handbill distributors for contributing to litter.

Motorists are irritated, too. At shopping malls and sporting events throughout San Diego, drivers commonly pluck handfuls of colorful circulars wedged under their windshield wipers and deposit them on the ground.

Security personnel at most shopping malls say chasing handbill distributors out of their parking lots has become a daily routine. The distributors, who try to capitalize on the quick turnover of cars at mall parking lots, violate the law in most places.

“Not only does it create a litter problem, but it annoys people,” said Tom Flaherty, security director at Fashion Valley Shopping Center.

Yet the vast number of shopping centers throughout the county continue to lure small-business owners trying to reach the masses cheaply. It is nearly impossible to gauge how many people actually read the circulars.

“I’m not interested,” said Fashion Valley shopper Sam Johnson, who simply hurls flyers in the back seat of his car and throws them out later. “If I want anything, I’ll look for it. I don’t even bother looking at them.”

Christy Perkins, a Mesa College student, said she reads the flyers before throwing them out because they occasionally offer a good bargain.

A Sorrento Valley computer programmer, Keith Lasley, suggested: “It would better if they just hung one (flyer) centrally where everybody could see it.”

Those who do it say placing flyers on automobiles is a useful form of advertising, especially in car-conscious San Diego County.

Alan, for instance, says his little ad campaign led to “a dozen or a dozen and a half customers, easily.” His $17.95 investment in the flyers, he insists, was a lot more economical than buying a classified ad in a newspaper.

“Business has been incredible,” he said. “If one out of every 10 flyers gives you a call, that’s incredible business right there. One customer pays for the flyers.”

For Alan, handbills also are appropriate to the level of business he wants to do. He asked that his last name not appear in the newspaper because he wanted to keep his business low-profile.

Not for Everybody

The medium does not work for everybody. When Fashion Frenzy opened in Pacific Beach recently, the manager of the clothing store printed 500 flyers announcing a “$500 Grand Opening Wardrobe Giveaway” and a 15% discount on any purchase with the flyer.

“We only got 10 back,” said disappointed manager Donna Clover.

Michael Schudson, Communications Department chairman at UC San Diego, admitted that handbill advertising on automobiles may bother some people but said it’s a legitimate form of mass communication.

“I find it a nuisance when it’s on my own car,” Schudson conceded. “But it is certainly one of a number of modes of advertising that a lot of people find to be a nuisance.”

For small businesses, he said, it’s an inexpensive and sometimes effective advertising technique “if you can target the right market.”

“I prefer them (handbills) to a phone call at home from a salesman,” Schudson said.

Alan, the surfboard repairman, said targeting the right market is the key. “I look in cars for towels and wet suits,” he said, adding that he only scouts local “surf spots.”

Despite its success for some business people, the advertising practice happens to violate the law in most places.

The San Diego Municipal Code prohibits the posting of commercial handbills on vehicles in public streets, Deputy City Atty. Joe Battaglino said. It does not prohibit the posting of handbills “expressing religious, political or sociological subjects,” he said. Attaching handbills to trees, throwing them from cars or distributing them on public beaches is also prohibited.

Violation a Misdemeanor

Though violation of the code is a misdemeanor punishable by six months in prison and a $1,000 fine, the city attorney’s office could not recall any recent prosecution for violating the law.

In Escondido, Assistant City Atty. John Serrano said: “It’s only illegal to distribute them and make a mess.” Therefore, he said, a distributor of handbills who places flyers where they will not blow away onto the ground is not breaking the law.

In El Cajon, the permission of the owner of a car or property is needed in order to place a handbill on it. The littering consideration is a prime reason why the ordinance is in the books, said City Atty. Lynn McDougal. “I don’t think we’ve ever prosecuted,” he said, “but we’ve written a few warning letters.”

Some shopping malls have also taken to mailing letters to handbill distributors. Marjorie Denn, security director at Parkway Plaza in El Cajon, sends offenders letters with a copy of the El Cajon ordinance prohibiting handbills.

The letter warns, in part: “Should you choose to violate this ordinance again, a $50 clean-up fee will be imposed against you.”

Flaherty, security director at Fashion Valley, said the biggest problem with handbills is that “99% of the flyers end up on the ground.” He cited an ongoing “cat and mouse game” between security guards and handbill distributors at the 20,000-space parking lot.

A security supervisor at Fashion Valley, Herb Hainel, said that on busy days thousands of handbills have been collected at the parking lot.

Hainel said he once caught a church group distributing handbills at Fashion Valley.

“They said: ‘This is the Lord’s work,’ ” Hainel recalled. “I asked: ‘Is the Lord going to come down here and clean this parking lot up?’ ”