The Sign That Won’t Go Away

Maybe you can’t fight City Hall, but George Lindsey and his neighbors are finding out that having the bureaucracy in your corner doesn’t guarantee victory, either.

Lindsey, a scriptwriter, lives just north of the Sunset Strip on busy Crescent Heights Boulevard. Two doors down, neighbors Albert and Dorothy Adams have erected a sign advertising Dorothy Adams’ palm and tarot-card reading business.

For two years, Lindsey has led a battle to remove the sign, complaining that it violates the Hollywood neighborhood’s residential zoning. He and some of his neighbors have fired off letters, circulated petitions, phoned in complaints and sought the help of their councilman.

“This is not an amusement park or a country fair with Gypsy caravans,” Hilda Bohem, who lives up the block from the sign, said in a letter to the Board of Zoning Appeals last June.

Carol Higby, another neighbor, called it “an insult to the eye and a threat to the property values of a residential neighborhood.”

Says Lindsey: “It’s illegal. . . . How would you like to have that sign next to your house?”

Not a single city official who has had a hand in the case disagrees with Lindsey. The matter is clear, they say: The sign is in violation and must go. The Department of Building and Safety has issued the Adamses five orders to comply; the Adamses, who have argued that as Gypsies, fortunetelling is part of their “constellation of religious beliefs” and should be permitted as a type of religious counseling, have lost appeals at every step along the way.

Dorothy Adams, at her fortunetelling office not far from her home on Sunset Boulevard, said she should be allowed to keep her sign and home office because others in the neighborhood operate businesses in residences.

The house next to the Adamses, for instance, is occupied by a law firm. But the owners of that property, right behind the Coconut Teaszer nightclub, obtained a zoning change years ago that allows commercial use. The Adamses’ house is the last lot on Crescent Heights Boulevard in the R-1 zone, but they will soon be applying for a zone variance that would permit their sign, said Jeff Lambert, a land-use consultant hired by the couple.

Last September, in language plain as day, the Board of Zoning Appeals issued a ruling that should have brought the matter to a swift conclusion. The board held that “the determination of the zoning administrator in denying an appeal of a determination of the Department of Building and Safety in issuing an Order to Comply directing the removal of a non-permitted advertising sign in the R1 zone” was correct and not subject to further appeal.

In English: The Adamses were finished, and it was finally time for them to take the sign down or face criminal penalties.

But nine months later, the sign is still standing. And the city, thanks to some shrewd maneuvering by the Adamses, is back at Square 1 in its efforts to force them to take the sign down.

“I’ve had it,” said Lindsey, who recently learned that the city had decided to close its original file against the Adamses and begin a new one. “These people are using every loophole possible to deter justice.”

What happened, explained Building and Safety investigator Steve Baxter, is this: When he went out last March to photograph the sign as evidence for a criminal case against the Adamses, he discovered that the couple had put up a new sign.

“The new one had a black background with white lettering,” Baxter said. “The old one had a white background with black lettering. And the new one was maybe a little bigger. It had the same information on it, but it was obviously not the same sign.

“You have to give the guy credit, he’s pretty clever,” Baxter said.

Baxter took news of this latest development back to the city attorney’s office, where he was told that without current photographs of the original sign, the city could not file a case--a defense attorney would tear it to shreds.

City inspectors had not photographed the sign on each visit because property owners usually comply with orders to correct such violations, Baxter said. Inspectors do not routinely document violations with photographs unless they expect the case to wind up in court.

“There are jobs where you go out and you know it and you act accordingly,” Baxter said. “We just assumed the guy would remove the sign, and we knew we could always take a picture of it. We were surprised it was a new and different sign.”

Once the city attorney’s office declined to file criminal charges, Baxter closed the old file and sent it back to Building and Safety senior inspector David Lipman to start all over again.

Lipman said he will send a field inspector--with camera--by the Adamses’ house this week and issue a new order to tear down the sign.

“I do intend to take a picture with every single order,” Lipman said. “I know the people (in the neighborhood) feel we’re not trying to do everything we can, but we are.”

Since the Adamses are likely to file more appeals to keep their new sign, it could be a while before the case reaches Baxter’s desk and he can refer it once again to the city attorney for criminal charges. But he is hopeful that that day will come.

“I do understand the neighbors’ frustration, and I experience a large part of it,” Baxter said. “I’m not allowed to go there with an ax and take it out. . . . Although he (Adams) is not following the rules, you can be sure that the Building and Safety Department and the city attorney will be held to the letter of the law. And we have to follow the law if we are to take it to court and win.”

NOT IN THE CARDS * August, 1988: George Lindsey writes to the city complaining about the sign. * Oct. 14: Department of Building and Safety issues the Adamses an order to comply within 30 days. * Nov. 10: The Adamses ask that the order be canceled. * Nov. 14: The city superintendent of building denies the Adamses’ request. They appeal to the Board of Building and Safety Commissioners. * Dec. 13: The Board of Building and Safety Commissioners denies the appeal. * Dec. 20: The Adamses file a notice of appeal with the Planning Department. * March 14, 1989: Chief Zoning Administrator Franklin Eberhard denies the Adamses’ appeal. They file a request to overturn the decision with the Board of Zoning Appeals. * June 13: Board of Zoning Appeals hears the matter. * Sept. 19: Board of Zoning Appeals turns down the Adamses’ request. * Nov. 8: The city attorney’s office holds an informal hearing, advising the Adamses that criminal charges will be filed if the sign is not torn down. * March, 1990: Building and Safety investigators discover that the Adamses have put up a different sign; the city attorney’s office decides that no criminal charges can be filed at the time. * April: File is closed and returned to Building and Safety Department inspectors, who must again begin documenting the presence of the palm-reading sign.