Flier Fighters Target Signs of Clutter

City officials, bolstered by support from neighborhood activists, have stepped up enforcement of a little-known but long-standing law that makes it illegal to post signs and handbills on trees, utility poles and other government-owned structures.

Some of the signs advertise a band’s weekend club appearance. Many promote the latest hot music CD. And still others seek lost pets.

Many neighborhood groups, now backed by an increasing willingness by the city attorney’s office to prosecute violators, are pushing hard to stop the practice. They say the signs make neighborhoods look sloppy, stay up too long and are just plain annoying.

“These signs have just got to stop,” said Gloria Woods, a homeowner who leads the fight against illegal signs in Studio City. “They look terrible and junky and who wants their community to look like that? Not me.”

Officials with the city attorney’s office agree. They said increased cooperation from neighborhood residents like Woods who alert authorities and the city’s Department of Building and Safety has helped prosecutors ratchet up enforcement of the ordinance that makes unauthorized signs illegal.

While the push for more compliance is citywide, the first prosecutions have come from the city attorney’s office in Van Nuys.

Since late July, the Van Nuys office has filed charges of illegally posting signs against four businesses, including the House of Blues on Sunset Boulevard.

In three of those instances charges were also filed for failing to comply with a Department of Building and Safety order to remove the signs. In one case, a Sunland/Tujunga area resident in August pulled down nearly 25 illegally posted signs advertising ways to obtain child support.

A few weeks later a Pasadena firm was charged with seven counts of illegal postings and six counts of failing to heed orders to remove the signs. The case is pending.

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According to city attorney’s office records, only two other cases have been prosecuted since January 1996. Both were also in the San Fernando Valley with offenders being sentenced to 30 days on a Caltrans work crew. Usually a multi-count offense, each count can carry a penalty of up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The Van Nuys office is considering charges against at least 10 other companies, ranging from small clubs to big record companies, said Deputy City Atty. Don Cocek, who is prosecuting four of the cases.

City code makes it illegal to affix a sign of any type to city property, including utility poles, trees, hydrants, and light posts without a permit. Prosecutions have increased in part because of an April 1995 city ordinance allowing building and safety inspectors, in addition to public works department officials, to cite violators, city lawyers said.

“We are being successful on a limited but growing basis because we have received the cooperation of some investigators in building and safety that have been aggressive in going after these guys,” said Rick Schmidt, supervising attorney for the Van Nuys branch of the city attorney’s office.

City lawyers said the process leading to prosecution often starts with residents spotting the signs, photographing them and then removing them. Sometimes, residents will even track the signs to their owners, saving inspectors valuable time, Cocek said.

Building and safety inspectors then contact those who posted the signs and order remaining signs removed, said Thomas Pruett, the Valley’s senior citation inspector for the department. If nothing changes, the city attorney’s office typically holds hearings to determine if criminal charges should be filed.

“We’ve been trying to pick on some of the more blatant violators,” Pruett said. “If nobody complains about these things, we wouldn’t notice. The Valley is a big place and there are only three citation inspectors.”

Illegal signs also are being confronted as part of a program called Pro-Active Code Enforcement, which is included in Mayor Richard Riordan’s Targeted Neighborhood Initiative, officials said.

“We’re more into getting compliance than into prosecuting,” said Ted Smith, the supervising city attorney for the code enforcement program. “So far, we’ve just been getting rid of them and trying to catch them while they’re going up.”

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For now that approach suits many groups just fine.

“I don’t think we need to start prosecuting just yet,” said Hellen Douglas, chairwoman of the Community Standards Council in South Los Angeles. “Many businesses, around here anyway, often comply when they find out it’s illegal.”

But Jules Feir, chairman of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn.’s Illegal Sign Committee, said enough is enough.

“I’m not against people finding lost pets and signs like that, but often even they don’t take the signs down, ever,” Feir said. “You would think by now people would know it’s illegal.”