There’s a Sticky Situation Afoot With This Location Film Shoot

Residents’ usual complaints about film companies shooting in their area include the blocked-off streets, noisy car chases, weapons being fired, etc. In alert Pacific Palisades, a local pointed out still another outrage.

The 2 Cents Worth column of the Palisadian-Post carried an anonymous note that said: “They were shooting a television show at Mort’s today, so I’ll blame my complaint on outsiders who don’t know any better. After all, we Palisadians are thoughtful people who don’t throw chewed-up gum on the sidewalk where it gets stepped on and thus tracked into cars and shops.”

Good to see someone stick it to the irresponsible gum-chewing set of Hollywood.

Unreal estate: Today’s showings (see accompanying) include:

* A vulgar home in a golfing vicinity, submitted by Codette Wallace.

* A residence that admittedly doesn’t have much character, spotted by Tim Gregory.

* And a house with windows for the buyer who is “looking for privacy,” in the words of Paul Kent.

Scoffs at law: Newsman Stan Chambers, now in his 58th year at KTLA-TV Channel 5, was telling a luncheon group of retired journalists how he’d originally planned to enroll in law school when he got out of the Navy. But on registration day at USC, there was a long line of would-be Perry Masons. That changed Chambers’ mind.

“When I got out of the service,” he said, “I had promised myself I’d never stand in another line.” One more reason to admire Chambers -- because of him, the nation has one less lawyer.

The pre-beeper, pre-cellphone era: When Chambers joined KTLA in 1947, it broadcast a total of 35 hours per week and its newscasts were 15 minutes long (or shorter).

As KTLA increased its presence, Chambers’ face became known to just about everyone who had lived in L.A. for a week or more.

One Saturday in December 1963, he recalled, he was shopping for Christmas gifts at a Thrifty Drug Store when another customer said to him, “You’re Stan Chambers of KTLA, aren’t you?” When Chambers said he was, she demanded: “What are you doing here? The dam is about to break.” The woman was correct, and Chambers rushed to the scene of the Baldwin Hills Dam, which eventually burst, destroying or damaging more than 100 homes and apartments.

Chambers’ tipster wasn’t a soothsayer by the way; she had heard an evacuation warning that was broadcast earlier.

The humorous side of broadcast news: “No matter how good or bad the news on TV is, my wife and I always get a chuckle out of the closed captions,” wrote Rodney Arner of Alta Loma. “The other evening on the 6 o’clock news on Channel 7, one beaut involving Heidi Fleiss was: ‘Sizemore’s ex-girlfriend, Hide A Fleece.’”

miscelLAny: In the name game competition, Bob Starr of El Segundo points out that the proprietor of Venice’s Flotation Location, which offers chambers of 94-degree water with Epsom salts, is none other than Mitchell Sink.

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATimes, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012, and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.