Southeast : Paramount Declares Billboard-Free Zone

Doing Lady Bird Johnson proud, Paramount, as part of a beautification effort, has declared its downtown a billboard-free zone.

So far, six billboards on Lakewood and Paramount boulevards and Downey Avenue have been removed, three of them from the town’s central intersection of Paramount and Rosecrans Avenue.

Erected years ago on Metropolitan Transportation Authority rights of way, the billboards stood sentry over an evolving downtown. Two years ago the city identified six signs for removal.

“When you’re driving down a small city’s commercial strip, they’re out of place, these huge billboards towering over the homes,” said city spokeswoman Linda Benedetti-Leal.

“They are visually very kind of blighting,” she said.