A great post over at Ban Billboard Blight about the move to allow advertising in Los Angeles Public Parks.

Public/Private partnerships. At last week’s meeting of the L.A. City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee, the term kept bobbing like a life preserver grasped for by city agencies at risk of being drowned in a violent tide of red ink. Councilman Bill Rosendahl, speaking of the Recreation and Parks department, said that in the absence of such partnerships “we’re not going to be able to sustain our parks, it’s as simple as that.” The other committee members who spoke–Paul Koretz, Greig Smith, and Chairman Bernard Parks–all nodded assent to Rosendahl’s declaration, apparently feeling no need to examine either its truth or its implications for the city’s future.

That’s too bad, because Rosendahl’s statement amounts to embrace of the idea that a large, modern, wealthy city will have to go hat in hand to corporate boardrooms in order to provide one of the most public and democratic–and many would say, essential–services to its citizens. In the picture painted by the silver tongue of Barry Sanders, the retired corporate lawyer and president of the Recreation and Parks Commission, this means some signs in the parks thanking Wells Fargo and Ralph’s and Taco Bell and whomever else rides to the rescue. “In my view, thanking a sponsor is not blight,” Sanders said. “A closed swimming pool on Monday is blight.”

…read the rest! Public/Private Partnerships: Will Commercialization Save Our City Parks? | Ban Billboard Blight.

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2. Why It Matters (from Ban Billboard Blight)
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At yesterday’s meeting of the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee, Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents the Venice area, endorsed the kind of plan put forward last year by the non-profit L.A. Parks Foundation to raise money for city parks maintenance and operations by selling space to what was termed “corporate sponsors.” The Venice Beach part of the plan called for 200 signs on an 8-block stretch of the Boardwalk, a total sign area of almost 10,000 square feet, or the equivalent of 15 full-size billboards.

Read the rest: Bring ‘Em On: L.A. Council Members Endorse Plan To Sell Advertising In City Parks | Ban Billboard Blight.

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During his 2009 election campaign, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich promised to crack down on anyone putting up illegal billboards and supergraphic signs. Continuing to make good on that promise, his office has gotten the owners of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel to remove the latest in a series of illegal supergraphics that have covered the walls of the historic structure for the past four years.The sign removed advertised the Warner Bros. movie, “Clash of the Titans” and was installed last month by In Plain Sight Media. Most of the previous signs advertised H&M, a Swedish clothing company. A federal court lawsuit filed last year by the sign company and owners of the Hotel is still active.

via Unwrapped: Illegal Supergraphic Ad Removed From Historic Hollywood Hotel.

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1. Owner Arrested For Hollywood Supergraphic Previously Cited For Sign Law Violations
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3. Office Tenants Plagued by Series of Illegal Supergraphic Signs; Do the L.A. City Attorney and District Councilman Care?

• LA Weekly profiles advertisers in Los Angeles, as well as AAA compatriot Public Ad Campaign’s Jordan Seiler. Here’s how it starts “Supergraphic multimillionaire Barry Rush couldn’t have been pleased to hear a few weeks ago that Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich had taken the audacious step of jailing a compatriot in arms, a Hollywood landlord who, for an undisclosed sum, cut a deal with a shadowy firm that draped an illegal supergraphic around a historic Hollywood Boulevard building.”
• Following the arrest, Ban Billboard Blight reports that several illegal “supergraphic” billboards have come down. “It’s surely no coincidence that companies have been removing these signs after City Attorney Carmen Trutanich filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against one sign company and a number of property owners, engineered the arrest and jailing of a landlord in Hollywood who put up a huge illegal supergraphic on an historic Hollywood Blvd. office building, and issued arrest warrants for sign company executives and a property owner who allowed three illegal supergraphics on yet another Hollywood building.” And they seem to be coming down all over the city.
• Fuel Outdoor has finally been removing their illegal signs after losing in court.
• Ban Billboard Blight has also reported on NPA Outdoor’s illegal activity in Los Angeles. And Public Ad Campaign has reported the NPA Outdoor is leaving New York.

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1. Office Tenants Plagued by Series of Illegal Supergraphic Signs; Do the L.A. City Attorney and District Councilman Care?
2. Owner Arrested For Hollywood Supergraphic Previously Cited For Sign Law Violations
3. Clear Channel Messed with LA Weekly and Lost!

The supergraphic sign above for the movie “Prince of Persia” on a Westwood office building is legally permitted as an on-site sign, which the L.A. sign code defines as a sign directing attention to a product or service generally sold or offered on the premises where the sign is located. There is no movie theater in the Wilshire Blvd. building, or the offices of the movie production company, so how can the sign be considered legally equivalent to the sign on the local hardware store or dry cleaners?

For an answer, one most go back more than a decade, when Michael McNeilly (the self-proclaimed artist responsible for the giant statue of liberty images around the city) put one of the “Lady Liberty” images on the side of the building at 10921 Wilshire Blvd. He was charged by the city with putting up the supergraphic without a permit, as well as violating a local zoning prohibition on any such signs in the Wilshire corridor from Beverly Hills to Santa Monica.

While that case worked its way through the court, McNeilly changed the sign to one he claimed to be a memorial to the New York firefighters who died on 9/11 in the World Trade Center collapse. Again, he was cited by the city, and this time filed a lawsuit in federal court with the aid of the ACLU, which asserted that McNeilly’s First Amendment right to free speech allowed him to erect the sign without city interference. Two years later, then L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo agreed to a settlement of that lawsuit that allowed McNeilly to keep signs on the 12-story wall of the building, as long as those signs fit the city’s definition of “on-site” signs.

According to the settlement, only current tenants of the building with “bona fide office space” conducting “bona fide business” would be allowed to place messages on the signs. Furthermore, those tenants would have to provide proof to the city that they were conducting such a business by having an employee present during normal working hours.

Yesterday, we went to the office at mid-afternoon with a local community activist who has tried in the past to convince the city’s building department that the various signs that have been put up on the wall do not comply with those requirements. On the sixth floor, there was an office with the sign, “Sky Posters, a Creative Service Agency” beside the door. (Sky Posters is one of the terms used by McNeilly, who is president of a company called Skytag, Inc.) The door was locked, and knocks went unanswered. We spoke to a woman who was going into the office next door, and she said that in the four years she worked there she had never seen anyone enter or leave the Sky Posters office.

As we’ve pointed out in previous posts, McNeilly is a fraud. He claims to be an artist defending freedom of expression when the obvious fact that he is an entrepreneur making millions by putting up supergraphic signs wherever he can find willing property owners and then suing to block enforcement of the city’s ban on such signs. He has used one of the country’s most revered images—the statue of liberty—as a placeholder for signs hawking movies, TV shows, and other corporate products.

In 2008, he put up a huge “Lady Liberty” image on the opposite end of the Wilshire Blvd. building, and then sued the city in federal court and succeeded in getting a judge to order a preliminary injunction protecting it from city enforcement. Lady Liberty is long gone, of course, and now a Nike Ad featuring a 10-story image of Kobe Bryant greets pedestrians and motorists navigating the single most heavily-trafficked intersection in the entire city of L.A.

Nike ad featuring Kobe Bryant on east end of building. Credit: Curbed LA

Based on statements by media buyers and ad agency professionals, advertisers pay upwards of $100,000 a month for supergraphics like that in those kind of locations.

The “Prince of Persia” supergraphic on the west end of the building, visible from the 405 freeway almost half a mile away, made news two days ago when Curbed LA reported that the building owner was speaking out against a proposed development across the street that would block some views of the sign, including the one from the freeway. A statement, perhaps, on how valuable those views are for a sign that is “on-site” in name only.

via How Was This Eight-Story Supergraphic Ad For a Movie Permitted as an “On-Site” Sign?.

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1. Office Tenants Plagued by Series of Illegal Supergraphic Signs; Do the L.A. City Attorney and District Councilman Care?
2. Sign Companies, Property Owners, Advertising Agencies, Major Corporations Thumb Their Noses at L.A.’s New Off-Site Sign Ban
3. Owner Arrested For Hollywood Supergraphic Previously Cited For Sign Law Violations

Friday night’s arrest of Kayvan Setareh for allowing an 8-story supergraphic ad to be wrapped across three sides of an historic Hollywood building was not the first time the Pacific Palisades man has run afoul of the city’s sign code, according to building department records. In January, 2007, a citation was issued for an illegal supergraphic on the building at 6777 Hollywood Blvd, and In November, 2006, citations were issued for a total of four illegal supergraphics on another building owned by Setareh at 5858 Hollywood Blvd. As reported by the L.A. Times, the arrest of Setareh followed concerns that because there was no inspection of the gigantic ad’s attachment to the building it could come loose and cause injury to pedestrians and motorists in the busy street below.

via Owner Arrested For Hollywood Supergraphic Previously Cited For Sign Law Violations.

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1. Office Tenants Plagued by Series of Illegal Supergraphic Signs; Do the L.A. City Attorney and District Councilman Care?
2. Sign Industry: “The Law is interfering with my illegal income!!”
3. Sign Companies, Property Owners, Advertising Agencies, Major Corporations Thumb Their Noses at L.A.’s New Off-Site Sign Ban

This is 16 minutes long animated film of logos and and advertising characters produced by a serious 3D house in France, and nominated for an Oscar, but yet in dire threat of lawsuits for use of corporate logos. At least this is according to the blogs, which, are… well… contradictory. But it is a hell of a great 13 minutes. Great villains, chase scenes, and a surreal vision of contemporary corporate life. It helps if you know Los Angeles.

Great fun. Sad truths. Fantastical visions.

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Almost a year after the L.A. City Council approved a moratorium on new off-site and supergraphic signs, and four months after it replaced that temporary measure with a permanent ban, advertisers and sign companies continue to wrap, hang, and otherwise display their multi-story supergraphic signs on the walls of buildings throughout the city.

So why are property owners and sign companies willing to risk open violation of the law, and advertising agencies and major corporations willing to look the other way?  The answer is easy to surmise from the fact that a large supergraphic in a high-traffic location can generate upwards of $50,000 in monthly revenue, while the maximum fine for violating sign law provisions is $100 a day.

The City Attorney’s office has filed at least two civil suits under a public nuisance provision that allows fines of up to $2,500 a day, but those lawsuits are slowly moving through the courts and any resolution is likely to be months away, if not longer, depending upon appeals.

In the meantime, absent any sudden displays of social and civic responsibility on the part of the outdoor advertising industry, expect to see the city’s public spaces occupied by more and more of these huge sales pitches demanding the attention of everyone driving, walking, bicycling or otherwise moving past them.

via Sign Companies, Property Owners, Advertising Agencies, Major Corporations Thumb Their Noses at L.A.’s New Off-Site Sign Ban.

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1. Office Tenants Plagued by Series of Illegal Supergraphic Signs; Do the L.A. City Attorney and District Councilman Care?
2. Sign Industry: “The Law is interfering with my illegal income!!”
3. Why It Matters (from Ban Billboard Blight)

Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco, New York; what big city has the outdoor advertising industry under control?

Last March, we reported on the case of an illegal supergraphic sign advertising Chase Bank installed over the second-floor office windows of a building at 7201 Melrose Ave. The city issued a citation to the building owner, Macculloch Properties of Brentwood, and in May referred that citation to the City Attorney’s office for criminal prosecution. The sign was then removed, but replaced in August by one advertising the TV show, Melrose Place. Then in October, a third supergraphic sign went up, this one advertising HTC cellphones. As of this writing, the sign was still in place.

Read the rest at: Office Tenants Plagued by Series of Illegal Supergraphic Signs; Do the L.A. City Attorney and District Councilman Care?.

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L.A. Press Club Awards

L.A. Weekly:  Billboards Gone Wild

via L.A. Weekly Reporter Wins Top Press Club Award For Investigative Article on Billboards.

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