On the Trail of Sign Scofflaws : Weekend Ads Proliferate Despite Efforts of City

Like urban mutants of Burma Shave signs, they stand along major streets such as Wilshire and Ventura boulevards, announcing the coordinates of some new apartment building just up a nearby side street.

Other than the signboards themselves, which measure about 4 by 8 feet, they hardly amount to much, just flimsy scaffolds of welded iron with legs that angle outward for stability.

They arrive under cover of darkness early Saturday morning and disappear as mysteriously Sunday night. Through the weekend, they stand, oddly, in the parking lane, antagonizing motorists and residents alike.

Technically, they’re trailers. They are towed about town on removable wheels and are licensed by the Department of Motor Vehicles.

But, when they began to proliferate late last year in neighborhoods where apartments are being constructed, residents had no trouble discerning an insidious new affront to the urban landscape. Just how insidious, though, they couldn’t have guessed. For six months, the city has been battling to eradicate the devices, without success.

“They’re multiplying like rabbits,” said the city’s parking systems coordinator, Jay Carsman, in a burst of frustration.

When complaints about the vehicles first began pouring into the offices of Councilmen Marvin Braude and John Ferraro, the solution had seemed routine. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation determined that section 87.54 of the Municipal Code prohibits advertising without permission on public property. Los Angeles parking officers began putting citations on the errant signs.

Not Much Success

Then it became evident that the citations were having no effect.

Some of the trailer owners simply paid the $13 fines, apparently willing to absorb the cost as a business expense, Carsman said.

Worse, others ignored the tickets and discovered that the city couldn’t do anything about it. That was because the city couldn’t find them.

The city, it turns out, pays a consultant to gather the names and addresses of parking scofflaws off the Department of Motor Vehicles data base in Sacramento. But the computer program that gets the information doesn’t know how to ask for the owners of trailers, which are licensed differently than cars.

Some trailers have now piled up more than 100 delinquent tickets.

The city has asked its consultant, Lockheed Datacom, to amend the program so that it can get the names of trailer owners, Carsman said.

Once that is done, in about four to six weeks, the city will at last be able to send notices to owners and impound any trailers with delinquent citations. Yet that power may prove to be academic. As is already apparent, the trailer owners will pay if pressed.

“If they pay those $13 tickets, we can’t touch them,” Carsman said.

In theory, the city could impound the trailers under the provision of the state Vehicle Code empowering it to impound any illegally parked vehicles. The catch is that the city must post the vehicle 72 hours before towing it. The weekend trailers never stay in place that long, Carsman said.

Legislative Course

Next, the city tried legislation. On its behalf, state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) introduced a bill in March amending the Vehicle Code to include advertising trailers on the short list of transgressors that can be impounded on sight.

The bill made it through the Senate, but the Assembly legislative counsel objected that it would be unconstitutional to seize a trailer without the 72-hour notice. The city attorney’s office concurred, and the bill was withdrawn, said Ann Blue, the city’s Sacramento lobbyist.

“We’re looking for new ways to go,” Blue said. “The last thing that we attempted didn’t work. But we’re not giving up.”

One idea, she said, would be to post streets permanently so trailers could be impounded on sight.

Meanwhile, out on the streets, the citizens are looking for their own solution.

Traffic Officer Pamela Campbell cited half a dozen signs in about an hour last week. The last one, on 3rd Street near the La Brea Tar Pits, was blotted with spray paint and stenciled with large red letters that said: “ILLEGAL.”