Patriotic Symbol or a Nuisance? Flag Again Waves Atop 51-Foot Pole

What finally pushed David B. Shaw to rebel, he said, were the television films of protesters questioning the U.S. role in the Gulf War.

So on Sunday, 18 months after the Torrance City Council ordered him to remove a towering flagpole from his Hollywood Riviera property, Shaw resurrected it; all 51 feet, with the Stars and Stripes billowing from its top.

“This is in support of the United States. It should always have been up there,” said Shaw, who keeps the 8-by-12-foot flag floodlighted at night.

But what Shaw calls a patriotic symbol, the city has declared a building code violation.

In July, 1989, the City Council, responding to numerous neighbors’ complaints about the pole and its noisy flapping flag, voted 5 to 1 to limit its height to 14 feet.

Shaw, 37, said he decided last week that it was time to revolt.

“Just watching all of this go on, and being without a flagpole. . . . There’s courts that are higher than the Torrance City Council,” said Shaw, vowing he is ready to go to court to keep the flagpole at his home on Via Mesa Grande, high on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Los Angeles Basin.

The city is weighing its next step.

Mayor Katy Geissert inspected the pole this week.

“It was a beautiful sight,” she said, but “the issue remains, he did not have a permit to put the flagpole up. . . . It’s still a violation of the law.”

And neighbor Ruth Weil said she has called the city to complain.

“I feel you have to go through a legal procedure, and he just seems to be defying it. It’s a beautiful flag, but it’s misplaced,” Weil said.

When she looks out her window toward the ocean, the flag is in the way, Weil said. “It’s imposing itself in my view. There was a legitimate hearing, and people complained, and we came to an agreement with the City Council on how he could fly a flag and not impose on our rights.”

City officials acknowledge that this is a ticklish issue with the country eight days into a war, which imparts fresh significance to symbols of patriotism.

“The city is sensitive to a time when patriotic feelings are very close to everyone. We appreciate this,” said Monte McElroy, who enforces zoning codes as city environmental administrator.

McElroy called Shaw on Monday to discuss the flagpole. Shaw said he told her that he would be willing to compromise if he could put up a flagpole 24 feet high.

Any compromise would probably have to be approved by the City Council, McElroy said.

Geissert said she is reserving judgment until she sees a written proposal, gets advice from the city attorney’s office and views the flagpole from neighboring homes.

Councilman Dan Walker, who cast the sole vote in Shaw’s favor in 1989, said Wednesday that he still believes Shaw has the right to his flagpole.

“I think the city should sit there and understand the situation, the times, and go out and look at that flagpole, and that flag, and be grateful that it’s sitting there,” Walker said. “I don’t think there’s any question that that flag should be there, and that flag should be up.”

Shaw said he bought the flagpole for $75 when a school was demolished, and first erected it in 1988. Some neighbors called the flagpole an eyesore, complaining that it blocked their view of the ocean. And in May, 1989, the Planning Commission ordered the height reduced to 24 feet. Shaw appealed to the City Council, which decided that the flagpole could be only 14 feet high.

Shaw complied; he dismantled his pole in the fall of 1989.

“Since the day I walked out of that City Council, I haven’t wanted to live in my neighborhood,” Shaw said this week. “Sunday, when I put it up, it was the first time that I’ve felt good living up there since.”

But the flagpole violates the city building and zoning codes, McElroy said.

Shaw has no building permit for it, even though permits are required for any man-made structure that is larger than 60 square feet or sits on a foundation, she said.

Second, in Shaw’s hillside neighborhood, any structure more than 14 feet high requires Planning Commission approval.

In addition, if more than one neighbor complains that light from the floodlight spills onto his property, this could be considered a violation of the nuisance ordinance, McElroy said. And if flag noise exceeds city standards, it could violate the city’s noise ordinance, she said.

Ultimately, the city could take Shaw to court, filing infraction or misdemeanor charges against him.

Shaw, a contractor, thinks that he is being harassed and questions whether the pole is a structure under the building code. Would a resident really need a building permit, he asked, to erect a 10-foot flagpole, or a tetherball pole?

Neighbor Rosalie Woodward, a former city planner, said this week that Shaw’s flag is a nuisance.

“It sounds like small artillery fire sometimes when the wind’s blowing,” she said, but recognizes that “you’re always at risk of being called unpatriotic if you object to someone flying a flag. But I feel patriotism can be expressed within the limits of the ordinance.”