LEAVE BUSINESSMAN AND HIS FLAGS ALONE.

Byline: SCOTT HOLLERAN Local View

GLENDALE'S bureaucratic busybodies are at it again. The city's Planning Commission staked its position squarely against flying American flags earlier this month, calling the practice ``a nuisance.''

Last summer's battle between the city of Glendale and a gas station owner over flying the American flag sparked outrage across the nation, reinforcing the city's anti-business reputation. While the city forces downtown businesses to close for city-subsidized exhibitions, it opposes building on one's property and threatens residents who construct front yard fences with jail.

Glendale's ban on the display of American flags - ridiculed on Jay Leno's ``Tonight Show'' - is its latest act as an enemy of individual rights.

It all started when businessman Kelly Khoury, an immigrant who has been flying the stars and stripes at his gas station for 18 years, was suddenly threatened with imprisonment. The city, citing an ordinance prohibiting flying too many flags, claims someone complained about the flags.

What standards are used to determine how many flags are too many? None.

Glendale's government decides how many flags each individual is permitted to fly. Khoury's case demonstrates that the city's arbitrary anti- flag forces could strike at any moment for any reason. Such is the nature of an omnipotent state.

Following public outcry and ridicule, the city staff recommended two improvements to the code, both of which would allow Khoury to fly the flags. But Glendale Planning Commissioner Aspet Davidian rejected the plans with relish. Davidian denounced the gas station's patriotic display with the statement: ``It's a nuisance.''

According to whom?

Rarely in the history of the city - which was created by a property developer whose name is plastered across the city - has there been such an openly hostile statement toward the idea for which the flag stands: individual rights.

Davidian's declaration reveals the stark practicality of doing business in today's Glendale: there is no freedom of speech and there is no right to one's property. If you want to fly several flags, the government may throw you in jail. If you resist on the grounds that flying American flags is protected by the freedom of speech - and you protest that the flags are on your property - the state will denounce you as a nuisance and could throw you in jail anyway.

Fortunately, Khoury - a self-made businessman whose background captures the essence of being American - is fighting back. Backed by many local residents, businesses, customers, advocates for free speech and property rights and City Councilman Gus Gomez, Khoury is preparing for a March 12 hearing the American way - he's assembling a grass-roots coalition to support his right to fly the flags.

As a flag-waver, Khoury is not alone.

When Florida Realtor Tom Neubauer distributed free miniature American flags on Independence Day, a city commission outlawed the practice - and, due to public outrage, backed down.

When Illinois automotive dealer Sid Herman erected 13 American flags - one for each original American colony - a town council outlawed the display and, following a five-year legal battle that damaged the city's reputation, the town council lost in an appellate court, which ruled that flag restrictions violate freedom of speech.

North Carolina retailer Dan Hunnewell simply balked at his town's flag restrictions, declaring, ``It's my constitutional right to fly as many flags as I want to.'' He did.

That's precisely why Khoury - whose modest gasoline station won the Glendale Beautification Award in 1992 - came to America 25 years ago and became an American. And, fundamentally, Hunnewell's remark expresses what being an American means - the right to live one's life. Glendale ought to leave Kelly Khoury alone and let him live it.