Official Warns Sign Owner to Draw Compromise

Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs will seek removal of a giant sign on Ventura Boulevard unless the owner of the Studio City Hand Car Wash comes up with a compromise that satisfies neighbors.

Last year a city panel approved the sign--a giant hand holding a pink Corvette sign--citing its artistic merit.

On Tuesday, carwash owner Benny Forat was warned by Wachs that he will vote to support the appeal of the Studio City Residents Assn. and the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns. against the sign unless a compromise is reached that is satisfactory to the two homeowner groups.

“The way in which it was put up was a fairly blatant violation of a whole number of ordinances and there is no justification for that,” Dale Thrush, a planning deputy for Wachs, said.

The homeowner groups had filed an appeal to a recent Planning Commission vote granting Forat an exception to the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan.

At 26 feet in height, the sign is six feet higher than the maximum allowed by the boulevard plan, city hearing examiner Nicholas Brown said. The sign, which features a pink 1957 Corvette atop a large sponge held by a 12-foot-tall hand, takes up 155 square feet of surface, which is 343% more than what is allowed by the plan.

Forat was fined in January 1999 for putting up the sign without a proper permit, but the Planning Commission voted in September to let the sign stay up.

“They [commissioners] felt this was art,” Brown said. “They felt it was the eclectic nature of the varied images of Los Angeles and that we wish not to discourage such art.”

Several supporters of the sign said people come from throughout the city to snap pictures of the sign. One supporter praised the sign’s “creative whimsy.”

But more than 50 residents and business owners from Studio City packed a City Council committee meeting Tuesday to demand the sign be taken down because it violates the boulevard plan.

“This isn’t about art,” said Tony Lucente, president of the Studio City group. “This isn’t about what this sign looks like. This is simply about maintaining the integrity of the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan. It is inconsistent with the objectives of the plan.”

After more than an hour of testimony, the council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee surprised the audience by delaying a vote at the request of Fred Gaines, an attorney for the carwash owner.

Gaines told the council panel Forat wanted to revive talks in hopes of reaching a compromise.

Afterward, Gaines conceded the new talks were sparked by a last-minute warning from Wachs that he would vote with the opposing residents if a compromise is not reached.

Gaines said Forat is offering to reduce the size of the sign by three feet--through making the sponge smaller--but wants to maintain the three elements of the sign, which has helped double business at the carwash to about 200 cars a day.

“We are willing to talk about it,” Gaines said of scaling back the sign. “We’d like to reach an agreement where we don’t have people on both sides of it.”

Polly Ward of the Studio City residents’ group and Joan Luchs of the federation said they are unwilling to even talk about compromise until after the sign is brought into conformity with the boulevard plan.

“We have no intent of compromising other than making the sign legal,” Luchs said.

Gaines said the opposing neighbors will have to abandon their hard line if a compromise is to be worked out.

He said 4,000 people have signed petitions in support of the sign, which he likened to other landmarks in Los Angeles, including the giant doughnut of Randy’s Donuts and the frankfurter-shaped Tail o’the Pup.

Councilman Hal Bernson, who chairs the Planning Commission, was skeptical.

“Something is a landmark after it has been there for a while,” Bernson said. “Not because it’s put up immediately does it become a landmark.”

The council panel reset the matter for consideration in two weeks.