Beachside Phone Booths to Carry Advertisements
First, there were the bright yellow trash cans advertising suntan lotion. Then came lifeguard trucks displaying signs that said, “Nissan, official car of the Los Angeles County beaches.” Now come the “billboards” on beachside phone booths.
County supervisors Wednesday approved placing advertising on 150 pay phones at the beaches and at Marina del Rey. The next step, said the head of the county Department of Beaches and Harbors, may be advertising on lifeguard towers.
It is part of a push by the board’s enterprise-oriented, conservative majority to make beach operations pay for themselves.
Under an agreement approved Wednesday, the county expects to receive $100,000 a year from the advertising on phone booths. The money will be plowed back into beach operations.
In return, GTE California Inc. and Target Media will be permitted to install 3-by-1-foot advertising panels on the sides of phone booths.
Some advertisements, for beachwear and athletic shoes, were up on phone booths Wednesday on a test basis, and more will be installed this weekend, said Ted Reed, director of the beaches department.
A ban on advertisements for alcoholic beverages and tobacco products was imposed by the board in 1985 after Supervisor Kenneth Hahn pointed out that the county spends millions of dollars trying to rehabilitate alcoholics. Also prohibited are advertisements for X-rated movies.
In addition, there will be no ads from automobile companies other than Nissan, which has an exclusive agreement with the county to provide lifeguard trucks in return for having its name on the back of the vehicles.
The ad agencies that land the phone booth billboards will be responsible for keeping them clean. The county contract specifies that any graffiti must be removed within 48 hours after the agency receives notice, “so we won’t have unsightly phone booths,” Reed said.
Unanimous Approval
While proposals in the past have drawn public complaints about commercialization of public beaches, the plan to allow ads on the phone booths was approved unanimously and without discussion.
“We’re more concerned about what people are selling when they are on the phone than what they’re selling on the phone booths,” said Rick Ruiz, an aide to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter. Galanter recently got the phone company to remove a number of phone booths along Ocean Front Walk in Venice because they were being used by drug dealers.
At present, 6,000 trash cans line county beaches, donated by a radio station in return for having its name on every can. They have replaced the original cans donated by Coppertone.
The county is also considering advertising on a portion of the 3-by-4-foot “tideboards,” chalkboards hung on the sides of lifeguard towers to advise the public of the times of high and low tides, sunset, water temperature and other information. Another idea is to make licensing arrangements with such businesses as swimsuit companies to advertise their wares, for a fee, as the “official products of the Los Angeles County beaches.”
“We estimate that roughly 60 million people use our beaches each year,” Reed said. “That audience is very attractive to advertisers.”
