There are 942 billboards in Los Angeles that are either violating their permits, never had a permit, or operating under a permit that has been lost somewhere along the line, and the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety has just released a report on where they all are and who's responsible for them. The report will be used by a City Council committee, led by Councilmember Jose Huizar, that is in the midst of deciding whether or not to grant amnesty to all these not-very-legal billboards. And get this, the LA Times reports that the company with the most offending billboards, Lamar Outdoor, has posted 100 ads supporting Huizar's reelection, some of them on illegal billboards, all for free.
Building and Safety's report was built off of billboard lists provided by the advertising companies, then confirmed by the department. The check revealed many billboards that had been modified to add a second ad surface without the appropriate permit. Among the guilty companies, Lamar Outdoor Advertising has the most troubled billboards by far, while Clear Channel comes in second with a measly 139 infractions:
The report by the LABDS also looked at the location of the billboards. The zip code with the most flagged billboards was 90003 in South Los Angeles:
A map of the illegal billboard-riddled zip codes:
And now, a zoomed-in view using a handy mapping tool from the LA Times. One caveat: their mapping tool actually maps by city district, not by zip code. First, here is the area around Historic South-Central where the illegal billboards are most common:
Echo Park is host to its own collection of questionable billboards:
And finally, here's a map of the whole city. It seems the Westside is largely devoid of unmaintained or egregious billboards, while Downtown and its vincinity more than make up for the dearth further west:
· Los Angeles Thinking About Legalizing 942 Illegal Billboards [Curbed LA]
· Billboards under scrutiny [LA Times]
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