VAN NUYS : Anti-Panhandling Signs Removed

Leaders of an anti-panhandling effort in Van Nuys have run into difficulty with Caltrans workers who are removing their controversial signs from freeway off-ramps where panhandlers congregate.

The signs, which read “Don’t Patronize The Vagrants, Don’t Be Conned, Help Is Available” feature a menacing-looking man with his hand reaching out. They were posted on Caltrans signs at the bottom of the San Diego Freeway off-ramps at Nordhoff Street and Roscoe Boulevard.

But after being put up last month by members of the Sepulveda Boulevard Business Watch, the signs were torn down by Caltrans workers last week.

“I’m sure this is something Caltrans can assist us with to discourage the panhandlers’ activity,” Flip Smith, president of the Sepulveda Boulevard Business Watch said Thursday. “The panhandlers are dangerous.”

Smith said he is concerned that panhandlers tie up traffic at the off-ramps and contribute to a negative perception of Van Nuys.

But Vincent Moreno, a Caltrans spokesman, said state law prohibits non-traffic signs from being posted on state right of way areas. He also was unable to say whether Caltrans would respond to a plea of cooperation from Smith’s group.

The effort was the latest by Smith’s group to rid the off-ramps of panhandlers. In January, the group proposed using the panhandling design on the signs on a leaflet to be distributed by police. That idea was struck down after city officials deemed the flyer insensitive to the homeless.

Since then, no other solution has materialized, frustrating those such as Officer Henry Acosta of the LAPD’s Devonshire Division, who supported the leaflet proposal.

“At all the community meetings I go to, people always bring up the guys down at the off-ramps aggressively panhandling, and they wonder why we can’t do something about it,” Acosta said.