Making a Tough Sell : Government: Officials impose a $25 fee for garage sale permits and new regulations after complaints from residents.

Some things just go together naturally. Salsa and gefilte fish, for example. String quartets and Sousa marches. Garage sales and Beverly Hills.

But now the gilded enclave’s leaders have concluded that it is time to impose some regulations on garage and yard sales. It seems that people have been complaining that these unfettered manifestations of capitalism are tacky. “A guy’s got an $800,000 home and he has to look at a bunch of garbage on his neighbor’s lawn,” said City Councilman Max Salter during the first reading of the garage sale ordinance last week. Resident Rose Norton said she first brought the problem to the attention of the City Council seven months ago because of a lawn sale across the street from her home on South Rodeo Drive, an elegant residential street south of the city’s shopping district.

The neighbor, who was in the process of moving, was having garage sales practically every weekend, she said. Just before he left, he moved the sale from the garage to his front lawn.

The merchandise was “mostly broken, ghastly looking stuff,” she said, marring a street that she described as a key gateway to the city.

“We have a beautiful city and we have so many visitors to the city on Sundays,” Norton said. But with the lawn sale, she said, “It looked like Tijuana.”

Councilwoman Vicki Reynolds said there was nothing wrong with garage sales per se. “It’s a matter of urban blight when you see it on the front lawn. It doesn’t belong there.”

The ordinance, adopted at Tuesday’s council meeting, takes effect Jan. 8. It requires residents to obtain a $25 garage sale permit, good for two days. No signs other than a three-square-foot city-issued sign will be permitted.

Only personal household property may be sold. Sales cannot start before 9 a.m. and must end by 6 p.m. Sale items must be displayed in the garage or in the side and rear yards. Sales on front lawns or driveways are expressly forbidden.

Residents may take out permits no more than twice a year. Religious or charitable organizations and schools are exempt from the ordinance provided the sale is conducted on property not used for residential purposes.

And what do garage-sale-lovers have to say about the ordinance?

“It stinks,” said resident Tamara Pursley, who teamed up with her friend Lillian Torres for a yard sale in front of Torres’ apartment on South Elm Drive last Saturday.

“When people start to do a good thing, they (government officials) charge you for it,” Pursley said.

Describing herself as a pack rat, Pursley said garage sales are her way of clearing out her closets from time to time.

Pursley’s wares last weekend included a never-worn blouse that had been a gift, used clothes she hadn’t worn in three years, and bottles of antique buttons that she collects.

She hung dresses and suits on clothes racks; sweaters and jeans were neatly folded on plastic spread out on the grass.

“It’s so hard to regulate something that doesn’t harm anybody,” said customer Diana Levitt as she scoured the goods on the lawn. “We’re not selling weapons or drugs.”

“It’s been fun,” said Torres, who was selling a mix of personal clothing and clothing samples she said she had bought from her employer, Bugle Boy.

Torres boasted of having furnished her apartment for less than $1,000 by shopping Beverly Hills sales.

“People in Beverly Hills take care of their stuff,” she said.

Councilwoman Reynolds said it was the proliferation of garage sales as a retail business that prompted the council to regulate them. Indeed, there was general agreement among Saturday’s sellers and buyers that a few people had ruined it for everyone, bringing down the heavy hand of regulation.

They said the practice was especially flagrant at several apartment buildings along Olympic Boulevard.

“It looked like they had gone and bought stuff from jobbers in the clothing district in L.A.,” said one woman who lives in the neighborhood. “I don’t like that,” she said.

Some people were displaying dozens of earrings on cards, just like in stores, added Stefan Dahlerbruch, another Olympic Boulevard resident. “The whole effect was tacky. It reminded me of a swap meet.”

City Manager Mark Scott noted that several cities in the region, including Culver City and West Hollywood, impose similar restrictions on garage sales.

Scott said it will be necessary to pay building and safety inspectors overtime on weekends to check on garage sales once the new law takes effect. For the most part, he said, inspectors will concentrate on educating people about the ordinance rather than handing out $50 citations.

Repeat offenders will be cited, he said.