Electronic billboards

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Electronic billboards hit Bakersfield

By SHELLIE BRANCO, Californian staff writer
e-mail: sbranco@bakersfield.com | 07/27/07 17:43:13

Last Updated: 07/27/07 17:43:02

They’re bright, they’re eye-catching, they change, and you’d expect to see them on the way to LAX or driving through a big city — not across from your neighborhood Starbucks.

Lamar Advertising’s 10 electronic billboards popped up around metro Bakersfield in mid-July.

Every six seconds they flash a different still image: gumdrops, animals, trivia about Kern County. They also display the leafy "Bakersfield. Life as it should be” logo.

The urban feel of these signs isn’t out of place here, said Brent Window, Lamar’s local general manager.

“Bakersfield isn’t ‘little old Bakersfield,’” he said. “It’s an incredible market and great city in California. I think it’s a perfect place for it.”

At the same time, city and county planners have been concerned about flashy signs. Although they’re taking Lamar’s signs in stride, they want to keep an eye on them. They’re worried they’ll distract motorists and create glare.

Lori Friday, co-owner of TGIF Automotive, has mixed feelings about the billboard across from her business at 24th and L streets.

She said city code enforcement told her she’d have to move her plastic sign that reads “Jeep Specialist.” It hung from a rolling garage door, which didn’t meet city standards, so she moved it back a bit inside the building.

“The city says it’s a distraction and you’re gonna tell me a sign is more of a distraction than a billboard that changes constantly?” she said.

Although she thinks the billboards are beautiful, she is concerned the eye-catching signs will be a traffic hazard at an intersection plagued with accidents — where Highway 178 meets a busy shopping area.

Next door at Lady Diana’s Floral and Furniture, general manager Edgar Garcia said the signs shouldn’t pose a traffic hazard.

“Most people drive though the street a lot and after a couple times they see it, they say, ‘Oh, I know what’s on there,’” he said.

When the signs were installed, they impressed everyone at the shop, he said. He wouldn’t mind advertising on them.

The first image the employees saw was a bird.

“Then we saw the images change and we were like, ‘Oh, wow’ and sat here a couple minutes and read all of them,” Garcia said. “It’s real high-tech. We like it.”

Window said he wanted to bring “state-of-the-art digital displays to Bakersfield.” The 10 feet by 21 feet signs are the only digital Lamar billboards in his market from Castaic and Oxnard to the Oregon border.

There’s no strategy behind each sign’s location, he said, only to spread them throughout the Bakersfield market.

Window is using colorful images to show off the capabilities and clarity of the displays. He said he couldn’t discuss when actual ads would appear. He’s not luring particular merchants with these boards — any business is fair game.

Window doesn’t think the signs are distracting. They will display only still photos, not videos. The display changes every six seconds. State guidelines call for changes only once every four seconds.

Digital displays don’t equate to an unlimited number of ads, Window said. The signs will have no more than six ad slots, although each advertiser can have as many different images within the slot as needed.

“Through our experience, cluttering up the board with an excessive amount of advertisers does not benefit the advertiser,” he said.

He said he doesn’t know if these are the first electronic billboards in Bakersfield not connected to a business. Window doesn’t plan to install more electronic billboards in the near future.

The county bans animated signs that change more than once every four seconds, said county Planning Director Ted James. That’s the standard under the Outdoor Advertising Act within the California Business and Professions Code.

A year and a half ago, sign companies informed the county that digital displays were the wave of the future, James said.

The county has regulations about signs’ distances from residential areas and their size. James said the county will monitor the Lamar signs to see if any land use or safety issues come up.

“If there’s some movement to them, you wonder, ‘Is it going to create a traffic hazard?’” he said.

They’re also a bit harder to read in the daytime, he added, depending on how the sun strikes them.

He said he hasn’t seen the signs blaring a lot of light — what he called a “strobe effect” — but the county will monitor that, too.

Lamar is the only outdoor advertising company James knows of that’s using the technology in Bakersfield.

Jim Eggert, city planner, said Bakersfield’s zoning ordinance isn’t as clear as the county’s. The city’s ordinance on signs prohibits electronic message boards that have moving print messages and animation. Eggert said Lamar’s boards don’t have moving messages, so they’re not a cause for concern.

Noncommercial signs, such as the city’s Rabobank Arena sign, are exempt. So are signs that display the time and temperature.

City officials plan to re-examine the ordinance regarding outdoor advertisements because they haven’t been consistent in interpreting the code, Eggert said.

The city has a five-second sign change policy, but that’s not written in the ordinance. And nothing in the ordinance distinguishes between private signs and street billboards, Eggert said.

Eggert met with Lamar and local sign companies June 29 to gather information about what clients demand and the trend toward digital signs.

Eggert forwarded a memo to the city’s Planning and Development Committee, and the city planning division will research the issue.

The committee will give some advice and direction at its Aug. 2 meeting, Eggert said.

He said these signs are cleaner than the old vinyl standards, which fade and tear when exposed to the elements.

“I guess I’d say we are big city,” he said. “We’re not surprised they’ve come here.”

On the board: Tidbits from Lamar Advertising’s new digital billboards:

Twenty-eight colorful images, including a tiger, parrot, gumdrops, oil derricks and a barn.

Factoids

• Metro Bakersfield covers 244 square miles.

• Bakersfield is the 58th largest city in the nation.

• Bakersfield is the world’s largest supplier of fresh carrots.

Zoning ordinances for signs

County

• The total area of any face of any off-site advertising sign shall not exceed 700 square feet nor shall the sign face exceed the length of 50 feet, nor the height of 16 feet. The total area of any face of any off-site advertising sign shall not exceed 300 feet within the metro Bakersfield area. Signs within the metro area located on lots adjacent to a state freeway and designed to be read from a freeway shall be excluded from the 300-square-feet restriction.

• The maximum height for off-site advertising signs shall be 35 feet.

• In no case shall an outdoor advertising display be within 100 feet of any residential dwelling.

• Lighting of off-site advertising signs shall be arranged so as not to produce a glare on other properties in the vicinity, and the source of light shall not be visible from adjacent property or a public street.

• Off-site advertising signs may employ LED or digital message centers and sign face changes provided that no portion of any electronic display shall be changed any more frequently than once every four seconds.

City of Bakersfield

The following signs are specifically prohibited:

• Animated, moving, revolving and rotating signs.

• Electronic message boards with moving print messages except those that depict noncommercial information such as public events, time of day and temperature.

• Flashing, blinking and reflecting signs, with some exceptions.