West Hollywood OKs video billboard for club.

WEST HOLLYWOOD - The Sunset Strip has billboards that smoke cigarettes, billboards as tall as buildings, billboards that are buildings. And on July 28, the street sometimes referred to as Hollywood's Longest Commercial will get billboards that dance, sing and tell jokes.

The West Hollywood Planning Commission on June 6 made its city only the second place in the United States where publicly accessible video billboards are legal. Two 9-foot by 12-foot JumboTron video screens will appear next month on the sides of a newly constructed nightclub at 9039 Sunset Blvd. - a venue whose name is, appropriately enough, Billboard Live.

The back-to-back screens, visible from traffic along Sunset Boulevard for several hundred yards in each directions, will broadcast a variety of entertainment including short films, video of bands appearing at the club, still shots of art exhibits from local museums and, of course, advertisements. Drivers will even be able to hear audio transmissions from the screens, which will be equipped with a low-power radio transmitter, by tuning into an unused station on their AM dial.

The JumboTron screens, manufactured by Sony Corp., are relatively common in enclosed spaces like sporting arenas, but public video billboards currently exist in America only in New York's Times Square. And because the Times Square boards will be removed next month, by the time Billboard Live opens it will boast the only such vehicles in the U.S.

But they will not come without some controversy. Two of the Planning Commission's six members voted against giving the club's owners a permit for the signs, on the grounds that they pose a serious traffic hazard.

"I've been rear-ended on Sunset because people weren't looking where they were going," said Planning Commissioner Thomas Jones, who opposed the signs. "To add one more element to that already distracting strip, I think, is a mistake."

Commissioner David Behr, another opponent of the signs, pointed out that people living on dead-end streets connecting with Sunset will have decreased access to emergency vehicles if the signs worsen traffic on the already crowded strip. And while Billboard Live might improve the economy of the region if it proves a major success, its distracting signs could actually damage business at other venues along the strip by creating massive traffic tie-ups.

"Unfortunately, this is probably an experiment," Behr said. "If this goes up and there's a big problem with it, I'm sure we'll have to revise the Sunset Specific Plan."

Four billboards allowed

Behr was referring to the city's long-term plan document for the Sunset Strip, which allows a total of four video billboards to be placed along the street in the future (although Billboard Live is installing two signs, they are considered only one because they are back-to-back, so potentially three more JumboTrons could be approved).

As part of the approval process, the city is commissioning a traffic study to be funded by the nightclub's owners which will examine traffic flow both before and after installation of the signs. The city has the authority to order the signs removed as a nuisance if the study reveals negative impacts on traffic.

Steve Strauss, vice president of operations with Billboard Live, said he does not believe the signs will cause serious traffic problems.

"For the first 30 to 60 days after they put up the sign in Times Square, it was a big deal," Strauss said. "Then it just calmed down in terms of traffic. It was a non-issue after that."

Diverse presentations

The nightclub is owned in part by Billboard magazine, and various weekly recorded music sales charts from the publication will be shown on the video screens. The city will allow a maximum of 17.5 minutes of every hour for advertising uses on the boards, and 24 minutes of every hour must go to non-commercial video, Strauss said. Much of that time will be spent broadcasting information on community activities or showing independent films.

The rest of the billboards' content will probably consist of self-promoting video for the club itself or the bands who will play there. At night, it may even feed from cameras inside the nightclub, so passersby can see how much fun the people inside are having.

The four planning commissioners who voted in favor of granting the sign permit voiced few concerns about traffic congestion or hazards. Vice Chairwoman D'Lynda Fischer said congestion is unlikely to get worse on that part of Sunset because it is already nearly always jammed, and drivers are moving too slowly to be so distracted by the signs that they cause serious accidents.

"I'm not sure when rush hour ends on Sunset Boulevard," said Commission Vice Chairwoman D'Lynda Fischer. "Maybe it's at 8 o'clock on Sunday morning."