Trying to get a read on news rack mess.

Last week, as I was driving down Ventura Boulevard in Encino, I noticed an elderly man sweeping the street in front of his retail store.

I'm not sure why, but I automatically flashed on a simpler time, when shopkeepers took pride not only in their stores, but the sidewalks in front, knowing instinctively that the pedestrian walkway was sort of their welcome mat.

I also thought of a wonderful photograph I've seen of a young Harry Truman sweeping the sidewalk in front of his soon-to-be-bankrupt haberdashery in Independence, Mo.

Today, of course, our shopping malls have tractor-like machines with bristles resembling giant electric toothbrushes swirling the dirt around and, we presume, into some hidden receptacle. Smaller retailers have the handyman use one of those infernal blowers ... doesn't clean up any dirt, but blows it into the street.

And, worst of all, there are those who don't really believe we live in a desert and think that water has no better use than to wash down the sidewalks in front of their stores (my holiday wish for them is outrageous DWP water bills throughout 2006).

Marvin Braude, who died earlier this month, served on our City Council for more than three decades. He would have been the first to decry--and try to outlaw--noisy blowers and water-wasting shopkeepers. He recognized the dangers of smoking, the value of bike paths and exercise, the need for green spaces.

I wonder what Marvin would have thought of the army of news racks that clutter those same sidewalks.

You know, those racks that offer periodicals ranging from the respectable general-circulation newspapers to those crammed with careers, cars and classifieds.

In the way

These are the same racks that make it difficult for people to emerge from cars; that take up our tax-dollar-created sidewalks for their commercial benefit; that make it difficult to get to parking meters; and that are strategically placed at bus stops, impeding boarding or exiting. I pray the city doesn't allow news racks at Orange Line stops!

When our City Council first began looking at regulating these racks that seem to propagate overnight, those who owned them wrapped themselves, not unexpectedly, in freedom of the press and freedom of expression. It was as if the very foundations of democracy would crumble if we could no longer obtain "Apartment Magazine," "Cars Weekly," "LA X-Press," "Single," or "Trade Express" from these racks of many colors.

Don't get me wrong, as a former journalist and editor, I firmly believe that a free press is one of the pillars of our democracy. But because a commercial venture produces a product that is ink on paper doesn't automatically qualify it as part of our news media. These are advertising circulars designed to make a profit (not that there's anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld would have quipped), with no pretension of providing news, commentary, analysis, or the other elements of what we consider a newspaper.

An ordinance to regulate these news (and in most cases, the word "news" is used lightly) racks was passed in mid-2004. It required publishers with racks to obtain a city permit. The regulation went into effect January 19, 2005.

In March, the Bureau of Street Services, Investigation and Enforcement Unit, of the Public Works Department, was still working on the process for publishers to apply for a permit that would allow so many racks every 100 feet.

Bureaucratic quagmire

But just try, as I have, to find out exactly how many racks have been removed, how many permits have been issued, and when out-of-compliance racks will be cited and/or forced to be dismantled. No luck.

One explanation was truly fascinating: the Bureau of Street Services Department is waiting for the City's Information Technology Department, which can't seem to get the program for the GPS system to work. Why do we need a Global Positioning System to get rid of news racks, you may ask? Simple, we need to use satellite systems to track where each rack is!

Let me help. Here's a brief catalog of just a few locations in the Valley. There are:

Twenty-six news racks on Petit Street just south of Ventura Boulevard, in Encino 19 in front of the Post Office at Van Nuys City Hall on Van Nuys Boulevard and Delano Street; 10 at Vanowen Street and Reseda Boulevard in Tarzana, several of them blocking access to parking meters; 18 on Reseda Boulevard just south of Ventura Boulevard in Reseda, eight of them abandoned; and a disgusting, and perhaps recordbreaking, 57 racks on the north side of Ventura Boulevard between Canoga Avenue and Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Woodland Hills.

There you are guys; go get rid of them ... No need to wait for technology to proceed. Why not start with those that are empty and abandoned?

I really like the elderly man who was sweeping his sidewalk; I don't like those who clutter our sidewalks with news racks very much at all.

Don't foul the footpath.

Sign posted on many London streets 

Martin Cooper is Chairman of Cooper Beavers, Inc., marketing and communications. He is Immediate Past Chairman of VICA and Past President of the Public Relations Society of America-Los Angeles Chapter and the Encino Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at [e-mail].