Cities to Banner Planes: Buzz Off

Laguna Beach and other coastal cities are taking aim at an icon of the summer beach scene: those low-flying, slow-moving planes that pull banners advertising everything from suntan lotion to Mexican restaurants.

Residents in Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach and elsewhere have become increasingly vocal in their complaints about engine noise from the planes, which traverse the coastline in rapid succession during hot summer weekends.

Officials in these cities said they want to do something but are powerless because only the Federal Aviation Administration regulates air traffic. So the cities are hoping to join forces in a bid to get the FAA to study the issue and consider whether noise restrictions are possible.

“They have a right to go up and down the coast and advertise,” said Newport Beach Councilman Dennis D. O’Neil. “But when they do it so much it becomes abusive and intrusive, they step over the line.”

The planes have been fixtures above the coast for decades. Perhaps the most famous banners advertised suntan lotion with the famous slogan: “Tan--Don’t Burn--Coppertone.” But a growing number of advertisers have flocked to the air in recent years, from Mexican restaurants to beer and soft-drink makers.

This is not the first time coastal cities have tried to reduce noise from banner planes, and past efforts have met with resistance from plane operators and federal regulators.

Under FAA rules, banner planes must fly at least 500 feet above the ocean and 1,000 feet above land. But pilots can get waivers to fly lower during windy conditions.

FAA officials said they don’t see their role as regulators of how banner-plane operators run their businesses.

“The FAA is responsible for ensuring safe operations and safe flights,” said Jerry Snyder, an agency spokesman. “We do not control commerce.”

Advertisers pay roughly $300 an hour to have their banner pulled across the horizon, and plane companies vow to fight efforts to reduce flights.

“Regulating us out of business is the first step in the wrong direction,” said Harold Ibele, director of operations for Air Sign. “It takes away from freedom of speech.”

His company sends four to eight planes along the Southern California coast on summer weekend days.

Ibele said banner planes are being used as scapegoats and that the noise the aircraft generate is minimal.

“Noise levels of airplanes are less than noise levels of highway traffic,” he said. “It is a political issue.”

Peter Lewis, who lives surfside in Laguna Beach, begs to differ. He said his weekends are often interrupted by the roaring of planes overhead.

“I don’t mind the banner advertising stuff, but they are noisy,” he said. “Like they don’t have any mufflers.”

Laguna Beach Councilwoman Toni Iseman is one of the biggest critics of aircraft noise. She will ask a coalition of coastal cities to examine ways to reduce air noise at a City Council meeting this week.

“When people go to the beach, they go to hear the sound of the ocean and the sound of children laughing, not some commercial venture,” she said.

If the FAA doesn’t act, Iseman said cities could appeal to the companies for self-regulation of the noise.

Two years ago, Huntington Beach officials asked the FAA to do something about plane noise but said they got little satisfaction. A few years earlier, residents in the South Bay asked Los Angeles County officials to reduce the number of banner planes. But county officials there, like those in Orange County, said they didn’t have jurisdiction over airspace.

Most banner planes are Cessnas or Pipers modified to cruise at a leisurely 55 miles per hour.

One operator, who asked not to be named, said most of the planes are fairly quiet but a few older models can be “hellaciously noisy.”