City May Regulate News Racks

Annoyed by the growing collection of news racks of various sizes and colors on Los Angeles sidewalks, the City Council on Wednesday took a step toward imposing new limits on the racks and requiring them all to be painted ivy-green.

The proposed ordinance would limit the number of news racks to 16 for every 200 feet, set height and width limits and require that clusters contain no more than four racks. Racks would be prohibited directly in front of store entrances, in single-family residential neighborhoods and in designated areas including the Venice Boardwalk, the Studio City “Walk of Fame” and Museum Row in the Miracle Mile.

“The city is going to look a lot cleaner and neater,” said Councilman Greig Smith. “When you have the accumulation of sometimes 15 to 20 news racks on a corner, it really looks trashy.”

The council voted unanimously to ask the city attorney’s office to draft the proposed restrictions.

City officials estimate there are as many as 35,000 news racks on city sidewalks, up from about 10,000 15 years ago. Some council members complained that Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times, recently installed more news racks for its new newspaper, Hoy.

The law would require each box to have a city permit, which would give officials a better idea of their number, said Gary Harris, the chief inspector for the city’s Bureau of Street Services.

A coalition of about a dozen newspaper publishers opposed elements of the proposal, including the uniform color and spacing rules.

“There is no city with the size and diversity of Los Angeles that has a single color requirement and enforces it,” said Al Wickers, an attorney for the Coalition of Print Media. “It imposes a very serious economic burden on the publishers.”

The coalition, which includes The Times, the Daily News of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Weekly, La Opinion and the Downtown News, contends that the color requirement would hinder their efforts to reach readers.

“If you put them all in green boxes, it makes it a lot more difficult for people to find the paper they want,” Wickers said.

Smith said he thought readers identified newspapers by their logos, not the color of the box. “I can tell you what the logo looks like, but I can’t identify a color with that,” Smith said.

The ordinance would give publishers one year to comply with the color rule, and small publishers that faced financial hardship could ask for two one-year extensions, according to Lynne Ozawa, a city analyst.

Wickers said publishers also were concerned that the restrictions on placement would significantly reduce the number of racks in the city and squeeze some publishers out of some neighborhoods.

Restrictions on racks near historical or cultural landmarks could remove them completely from stretches of Spring Street, Broadway and Hollywood Boulevard, Wickers added.

City officials are working out details of a lottery that would determine which racks could remain.

The newspaper publishers support the proposal to require a permit for each news rack as well as enforcement against news racks that are illegal or are not maintained.

The proposed ordinance has drawn support from dozens of neighborhood councils and homeowners associations, who say the proliferation of racks has affected quality of life.

Polly Ward, vice president of the Studio City Residents Assn., said a stretch of Ventura Boulevard near her home had 160 news racks in two blocks.

Wickers said he hoped to talk to city officials about a compromise before an ordinance was drafted.