Junk Mail on Doorstep Irks Beach Residents

Looking for some cheap Thai food? A full year at a health club for $175? A bargain pizza from Lulu’s or Hank’s or Neno’s? Ask Louise Fleming, who has bags full of such deals.

A Redondo Beach resident, Fleming has been collecting--for the past six months--the doorknob hangers, flyers and other advertisements that appear at her door day after day. Forget about the deals--Fleming says she is sick of being bombarded with unwelcome solicitations.

“It’s a damn nuisance,” she said. “I can’t stand people entering my property to leave this junk. It’s junk mail on our doorknobs.”

Responding to a number of such complaints from residents, the Redondo Beach City Council on Tuesday night authorized the city’s Resource and Conservation Commission to come up with a voluntary way of stemming the tide. Concerned about infringing on the rights of small businesses and those residents who like the ads, the council stopped short of banning the ads outright.

Redondo Beach already has a law on the books that prohibits such distribution citywide, but City Atty. Gordon Phillips has held that it is overly broad and therefore unenforceable. Phillips said he could draw up a more tightly worded ordinance.

That’s what neighboring Hermosa Beach did last year, banning handbills if property owners post “No Advertising” signs. The Hermosa law also requires that handbills be attached to the doorknob and not just thrown at the front door.

At her Redondo Beach home, Fleming received an estimated five pounds of such literature from May through October, according to her survey, which she says translates into 154 tons a year at the city’s 28,600 residences.

It’s not just the excess litter that angers Fleming. She also dislikes having strangers come to her property and considers the advertisements a signal to burglars. When she returned from vacation in September, for instance, she had a pile of ads waiting for her--a sure tip-off that no one was home.

Fleming hauled all her ads in two shopping bags Tuesday night to the City Council chambers and dumped a sack load on the floor in front of the dais.

Mayor Brad Parton objected to the display but conceded Fleming’s sentiment was shared by many in the city. Parton said he collects a good four advertisements at his own front door on a typical day.

Councilwoman Marilyn White, who was sworn in to replace her late husband on the council this week, described the uncomfortable feeling she gets every time a stranger steps onto her porch and fiddles with her doorknob to attach an ad.

Not everyone, however, agrees that the flyers are such a bother.

Councilman Stevan Colin said the city has more pressing concerns than prosecuting a pizza maker for advertising his pies. Councilwoman Kay Horrell, who also objected to any regulations on the ads, said her neighbors pick up her flyers when she is away.

And resident Sal Princiotta said he enjoys perusing the ads at his front door.

“Communication is the essence of life,” Princiotta said. “If we don’t communicate, we’re dead. . . . I like getting (the ads). I read all my junk mail.”

Harvey Hoffman, director of operations for the North Hollywood company that owns the Pizza Man chain, said he believes the vast majority of residents welcome the money-saving coupons delivered at their doors. The local Pizza Man distributes several thousand flyers a month in the South Bay.

“You have to weigh the good and the bad,” Hoffman said. “It’s something businesses have to do to get the word out--especially in this recession. Most people do look for coupons. Every time I want to order a pizza I look for one of those things on my door.”

After hearing from Fleming and other critics, the council voted 3 to 2 to direct city conservation commissioners to investigate a voluntary program in which residents would put their names and addresses on a special list that would be forwarded to the companies that deliver the flyers. The program, endorsed by council members Barbara Doerr, Terry Ward and White, might also provide those residents with special window stickers that would identify their residences to distributors.

Businesses that drop off handbills to those residences despite the warnings would not face any legal sanctions under the proposed city program, but the businesses would be encouraged to comply.

Banning the flyers outright elicited one additional dilemma for the council members, many of whom deliver flyers themselves during election campaigns.

As resident Frank O’Leary put it: “That suspicious-looking person who comes up to your door to rattle the doorknob may be a candidate for mayor.”