Billboard Ban Pushed for Alcohol, Tobacco

Acknowledging the city is moving into uncharted waters, the Arts, Health and Humanities Committee took the next step Monday in Councilman Mike Feuer’s effort to ban tobacco and alcohol advertising on billboards in Los Angeles.

The committee asked the city attorney’s office to draft an ordinance within 90 days that will outline the ban. The City Council will decide at an upcoming meeting whether to support the committee’s vote.

Feuer, whose district includes the southeast Valley, said he hopes the ban will be in place before the end of the year.

At a hearing Monday, the committee discussed several ramifications of the ban, such as possible legal challenges on 1st Amendment grounds and the need to update the zoning code, which does not clearly define billboards. Feuer detailed a similar billboard measure adopted in Baltimore and later upheld by a federal appeals court.

“Billboard advertising is a unique form of advertising because while you can turn off the television or turn the page of a magazine, a billboard is deliberately placed in our field of vision,” Feuer said.

He cited a variety of statistics on rising teenage drinking and smoking, adding his own young children have begun recognizing ads for those products.

Council and committee members Joel Wachs and Rita Walters expressed support for Feuer’s proposal.

Assistant City Atty. Mark Brown noted that the Baltimore ban exempts some industrial and commercial areas of the city. He said there is no record of any city imposing a total ban.

Given that fact, Brown said, “We need a strong factual basis for doing this.”

Feuer said Baltimore’s zoning differs significantly from Los Angeles’ in that commercial and industrial areas do not usually intersect with residential ones, meaning billboards there are much less likely to reach children than the signs are here.