Compton Bans Tobacco, Alcohol Billboards

No longer will images of bare-chested men and scantily clad women hawking cigarettes and alcohol stare down from billboards in the city of Compton.

Compton has become the first city in the state to ban alcohol and cigarette billboard advertising.

“This is a milestone for Compton and a precedent item for California,” said Kris Bailey of the Black Women’s Media Project, a group that has pushed for removing the billboards. “We have been working on this effort for more than a year.”

The ordinance, unanimously adopted Tuesday by the City Council, goes into effect in 30 days. It prohibits placing “any sign, poster, placard or graphic display that advertises cigarettes or alcoholic beverages in a publicly visible location.”

Such locations include outdoor billboards, sides of buildings and free-standing signboards. The ordinance does not apply to signs inside a business, ads on buses, or signs adjacent to freeways.

Existing ads that are now illegal must be removed within two years.

A spokeswoman for a major billboard company said Wednesday the ban was unnecessary.

“We already voluntarily ban alcohol and tobacco ads within 500 feet of schools and churches,” said Dash Stolarz, spokeswoman for the Eller Media Company.

“It is not so much that our business is threatened as the principle of free speech that is at issue,” Stolarz said. “These are legal products for sale to adults.”

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling upholding a Baltimore ordinance banning alcohol and tobacco ads from billboards.

The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest says studies show that tobacco and alcohol companies target black and Latino communities, and that ads in those areas are more suggestive than in predominantly white communities.

“Certainly they are more numerous and concentrated in minority communities,” said George Hacker, a spokesman for the center. “And there is no question that many of the ads are outrageously provocative.”

Stolarz said the problem with these accusations is that billboards are easy to attack, but provocative advertising is endemic in magazines and on television.

“It is the advertising business in general and not billboards,” she said. “We are just the messenger.”

Bailey said a billboard advertising alcohol in Compton has been replaced by one advertising coffee.

“This shows that the billboard companies can find satisfactory replacements for the cigarette and alcohol ads,” she said.

Compton Mayor Omar Bradley said children in his city “are inundated with provocative images that suggest that alcohol and tobacco consumption leads to happiness.”

While several communities, including Long Beach, Inglewood and Los Angeles County have enacted or are considering milder ordinances limiting outdoor ads from within 500 to 1,500 feet of schools and churches, the Compton measure follows Baltimore and Chicago in actually banning cigarette and alcohol advertising.

The Black Women’s Media Project said it will encourage other cities, including nearby Lynwood, to follow Compton’s lead.