Braude’s Ban on New Billboards Falls 1 Vote Short

An effort to ban new billboards in Los Angeles was narrowly defeated by the City Council Tuesday amid contentious debate and heavy lobbying from the sign industry.

The measure fell one vote short of the eight required for approval.

Councilman Marvin Braude, who has sought to ban billboards for 16 years, vowed to continue the fight.

“This isn’t going to go away,� Braude told his colleagues.

“In 1972, I got four votes. Today, I got seven votes,� he added in an interview after the vote. “That’s tremendous progress. During the next few years, we’ll increase it so that we’ll have the majority. I’m optimistic.�

Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino, said he and other members of a coalition of chambers of commerce and homeowner groups that pushed for the ban will mount an intensive lobbying campaign to pick up an eighth vote. If that fails, he said, supporters may go directly to the voters with an initiative.

Encino homeowners have been in the forefront of the proposed ban because of 33 billboards and 1,500 smaller signs along a 3 1/2-mile stretch of Ventura Boulevard in their community. The measure would also have strengthened the city’s law restricting storefront signs.

During the emotional two-hour debate, Councilman Hal Bernson argued that a ban on new billboards would “destroy an entire industry.�

But Councilwoman Joy Picus, citing a number of other cities, such as Beverly Hills, Santa Barbara and Santa Monica that have banned the signs, said, “The beautiful cities are the ones without billboards.�

Braude, who sponsored the proposed ban, attributed the defeat to heavy lobbying by the billboard industry, a major contributor to council members’ political campaigns. While industry lobbyists conferred with council members on the side of the chamber, 300 employees of billboard companies packed the room.

Free Space

Representatives of billboard companies also presented the council with a 3-foot-high stack of about 2,000 letters from such groups as the Los Angeles County Medical Assn., which received free billboard space to encourage the use of condoms to help prevent the spread of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Braude has lost three previous efforts to ban new billboards. (State law prohibits cities from outlawing existing billboards without compensating billboard companies.) But this time, proponents of a ban were encouraged by a number of changes in the political climate, including the burgeoning slow-growth movement and last year’s defeat of Council President Pat Russell, a leading foe of tougher sign controls, by environmentalist Ruth Galanter.

Billboard companies argued that the city’s 2-year-old sign law, limiting the distance of billboards from each other and residences, works.

Ken Spiker, a former city legislative analyst who is now a lobbyist for four billboard companies, said that since the law went into effect in July, 1986, his clients have taken down 481 billboards and put up only 84 new ones.

No Assurance

But sign-control advocates contend that the existing law permits thousands of new billboards to go up. If one is torn down, there is no assurance that a new one will not go up on the same site, they say.

The Los Angeles County-Orange County area ranks first in the nation in billboards, with an estimated 22,000, nearly twice the number in the second-ranked New York metropolitan area, an industry source said. Of those, about 9,500 billboards are in the city of Los Angeles, the Planning Department said.

The roll call on Braude’s ordinance was:

For: Ernani Bernardi, Joan Milke Flores, Galanter, Mike Woo, Zev Yaroslavsky, Braude and Picus.

Against: Richard Alatorre, John Ferraro, Robert Farrell, Gilbert W. Lindsay, Nate Holden, Gloria Molina, Joel Wachs and Bernson.