Roadside War of Words : Billboard Industry Is Spending Big Bucks to Hold Back Rising Tide of Graffiti

When advertisers want to display a service or product in a big, bold, hard-to-miss way, they turn to billboards.

Unfortunately, the same is true for graffiti taggers keen on putting their mark where the whole world can see it.

In the past year, the battle over whose message will prevail on billboards has intensified in Los Angeles, one of the top markets in the nation’s $2.5-billion outdoor advertising industry, and the leading victim of graffiti taggers. Some outdoor advertisers spent twice as much money last year as in previous years to keep their advertising space clean.

“We’ve noticed that the taggers are getting more innovative by getting on signs from rooftops,” said Van Nuys Homeowners Assn. President Don Schultz. “Anything that stands still long enough will get graffiti.”

Now, the advertisers have begun fighting back.

To thwart spray-can-toting youths, advertisers have begun wrapping razor wire around the base of billboards, hiring security guards to launch sting operations, raising access ladders up to 22 feet off the ground and removing billboard panels when they are not in use.

Many also offer toll-free numbers to report vandalism. When vandals are caught in the act, billboard firms say they have successfully pressed for stiff penalties, such as full restitution and up to 200 hours of community service.

“Graffiti is a major problem in the outdoor billboard industry,” said Bill Ripp, vice president of Southern California operations for Gannett Outdoor Co., one of the nation’s largest outdoor advertisers, with 4,000 billboards in the metropolitan area. “It has exploded in the past 12-month period.”

Last year, Gannett spent almost $200,000 to keep billboards in Los Angeles graffiti-free, about twice as much as the previous year, he said. The total included the cost of razor wire and salaries for painters.

Billboards have become the target of taggers, police and outdoor advertisers say, because they are seen as the ultimate display board; a clean, well-lit and highly visible surface that is difficult for rival taggers to reach.

But because billboards are hard to reach, they are only for the most daring and cunning tagger, they say.

“The more risk, the more fame,” said Delphia Jones, director of Operation Clean Sweep, a city graffiti- and litter-removal program.

Los Angeles Police Officer Bill Longacre, a department expert in graffiti problems, said the goal of any tagger is to put a marking where it will get the most exposure.

“The bottom line is getting the most locations, the most exposure and the most notoriety,” he said. That is why taggers also target buses that travel throughout the city and are seen by thousands, Longacre said.

Advertising companies are not the only ones concerned about graffiti on billboards.

Two months ago, Garden Grove residents and public officials were fuming when taggers struck a billboard advertising a reward for information about the murder of a police officer. At the time, Mayor Tom Daly said: “Maybe it’s time to bring back the public stockades.”

Southern California has long felt the sting of graffiti taggers. The owners of homes, businesses, and churches--any property with a flat surface--are vulnerable to spray-can vandalism.

In 1991, upward of $66 million in private and public funds was spent on graffiti removal in Los Angeles County, according to the state Department of Transportation.

But there is a special concern in the billboard industry about keeping the client’s message free of graffiti, particularly in Los Angeles, which has 40,000 of the nation’s 500,000 billboards, transit shelters, benches and bus ads.

Although the outdoor advertising industry has shown only moderate growth in the past two years--about 5% in 1991 and 2.2% in 1992--industry experts believe that the vandalism problem has not had a significant negative impact.

But some fear that the problem may grow worse.

“There are no indicators that tell us if graffiti has had an impact on the business,” said Nancy J. Fletcher, president and chief operating officer of the Outdoor Advertising Assn. of America. “But who knows whether it will in the future?”

Although the problem has been felt by outdoor advertisers in urban areas nationwide, she said it has hit hardest in Los Angeles.

In the past, the problem of graffiti has not been serious enough to merit discussion at the association’s annual convention, Fletcher said. But when the trade group meets in St. Louis in September, she said the topic will almost surely be raised.

Steve Landaker, a vice president for Martin Outdoor Advertising, a nationwide firm with about 600 billboards in the High Desert area, fears that his clients are getting frustrated by the vandalism.

“The clients drive by and they see the sign has been tagged and they take their dollars elsewhere,” he said.

For years, Landaker said, the problem was almost nil. But in the past two years, Landaker estimates that his firm has spent about $6,000 a month to keep graffiti off or remove it from billboards in Palmdale, Lancaster and other High Desert communities.

“It doesn’t matter who the client is; they hit them all,” he said.

Eric Rose, a spokesman for Patrick Media Group, the largest outdoor advertising firm in the nation, with 7,000 billboards in Southern California, said the graffiti problem is not limited to poor neighborhoods.

“Unfortunately, this problem is equally appealing in wealthy neighborhoods and poorer neighborhoods,” he said.

Rose said Patrick spends as much as $10,000 a month to remove graffiti from its billboards in Southern California. Most of that money pays for one full-time worker to paint out graffiti on billboards, he said. That is a 25% increase over the previous year.

“We’ve taken several steps,” Rose said. “It is a problem that has frustrated our industry.”

In October, Patrick Media Group and Gannett Outdoor Advertising donated $20,000 and space on their billboards to a city program that offers rewards for the arrest of graffiti vandals. Another $5,000 was contributed collectively by three smaller billboard firms.

Many billboard firms have in recent years installed toll-free numbers to report vandalism. The companies say they try to erase the markings within 24 hours of each report.

Perhaps because billboard companies are cleaning the billboard surface faster, taggers are taking a new tactic: They are putting graffiti on the frames and backsides of billboards, which are harder to clean.

“We look at graffiti vandals as dogs marking their territory,” Rose said. “If we can clean up the territory fast, we can encourage them to do it elsewhere.”