Victory for Street Artist

He calls himself “the world’s fastest painter.” So no wonder Adam Geld didn’t waste any time when police painted him into a corner in Hollywood.

Geld was whipping out one of his finished-in-four-minutes acrylic scenes when Los Angeles police officers made their own scene--arresting him for blocking the Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk and handcuffing him on the spot.

Run-ins with police had been common for Geld. In the past, he had simply ignored the tickets he got for selling his aerosol spray-painted moonscapes without a permit, for putting his artist’s table on the sidewalk and for possessing the flammable liquid for the gasoline-powered generator that runs the table’s exhaust fans.

But Geld couldn’t ignore being hauled off to jail. After his arrest last year, Geld sued the police, charging that his 1st Amendment rights had been violated.

The 34-year-old artist from Sherman Oaks now has won a victory that some say could turn the Hollywood Walk of Fame into an inland version of the zany, artist-packed Venice Boardwalk.

Los Angeles officials have decided to pay Geld $23,000 to settle his federal lawsuit and agreed to begin training LAPD officers in how to determine whether sidewalk vendors are legal.

Geld celebrated his victory by setting up shop Monday night on Hollywood Boulevard at the entrance to the Red Line subway’s Highland Avenue station.

Along with his cache of poster board and a dozen cans of spray paint, Geld carried copies of the settlement and a court stipulation signed by a city lawyer that pledges the LAPD will refrain from ticketing him as long as he stays at least 20 feet from the subway station’s escalators.

“Let’s see how long it takes for the police to show up,” he said as he set up his equipment.

Even after the preliminary stipulation was signed in May, Geld received another citation from police.

“I said, ‘Hey, I’m suing you guys, dude. Look, here are the names of your buddies on the lawsuit. Do you want your name added to it?’ He gave me a ticket anyway,” said Geld.

Besides the cash payment (Geld will get $8,000, his lawyers will get $15,000), the settlement requires the city to issue a special training bulletin “to all Los Angeles Police Department patrol officers setting forth the facts and circumstances under which individuals may properly be issued citations” for blocking sidewalks and for carrying flammable liquids.

City lawyers could not be reached for comment Tuesday. But Geld’s attorney, Rhonda Fosbinder, who has represented other street artists in tussles with city officials in Santa Monica and Laguna Beach, said sidewalks are considered public forums, and performances and artwork should be treated with the same wide latitude as political speeches.

She acknowledged that officials may be nervous over the settlement’s impact on the Walk of Fame and at subway stations.

Officials are concerned that hundreds of artists and performers will congregate on the boulevard, but there are ways to prevent that, Fosbinder said Tuesday: “They can impose reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on these activities. They just can’t ban people and say people can’t do anything.”

Walk of Fame officials predicted the settlement will cause Hollywood leaders to set guidelines for street artists as has been done in Santa Monica.

“It sounds like this loosens the requirements we now have. We probably need to take a look at this,” said Leron Gubler, president and chief executive of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Officials of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority--which also was sued by Geld because it uses LAPD officers for transit-line law enforcement--said the agency is developing a vendor policy. A Monday court hearing is scheduled for the part of Geld’s lawsuit involving the MTA.

But it is unlikely that the MTA would ever allow flammable liquids to be used in subway stations, said spokesman Gary Wosk. “We’d never put our passengers in harm.”

Subway passengers were nonetheless startled Monday night when they emerged from the Red Line station and came upon Geld. Dressed in a blue leisure suit, he was seated in front of his table as the generator rumbled, the exhaust fans whirred and a spotlight shined on a lunar landscape he was creating with his spray paint.

Geld took up speed-painting seven years ago when he tired of running a ticket broker business in Sherman Oaks and a snowboard shop in Big Bear. “I was sick of that life. I was eating Tums and Rolaids by the handful,” he said.

These days, Geld enjoys the part-time nature of painting at such events as rock music concerts and private parties. But between those well-paying gigs, he says he needs to hit the streets, where he can raise as much as $300 for a few hours of spray-painting and bantering with onlookers.

Geld used jar lids to form planets against a dark background and then used a cigarette lighter to turn an aerosol can into a fiery blowtorch to dry the paint.

Looking for police who never came, he repeatedly urged a crowd of about 30 to move in closer to keep the sidewalk open. He also urged them to donate a dollar for his paint--and to spend $20 for the completed picture.

He signed the bottom of the 14-by-18-inch picture and affixed his thumbprint to the corner.

“I don’t want there to be any counterfeiting,” he explained. “Years from now, I’m going to be famous.”