LOS ANGELES—The most unsettling aspect of the petition campaign by a West Hills mother to ban billboard ads for local gentlemen's clubs is the fact that she was willing to pull her 11-year-old son into the debate, as if the kid really has a clue. But that is exactly what Ursula Pyland did, according to the Daily News.
"The petition was prompted by seeing her 11-year-old son grow upset at the billboards, which he routinely sees on trips to 7-Eleven or Taco Bell," reported the paper.
"'He started crying one night,' she said. 'He thought the woman on the billboards was going to be hurt by men.'"
How convenient. Look, let's be clear about one thing: unless her kid is a savant whose special gift is somehow divining the dangers related to dancing at a strip club just by looking at a headshot of a woman on a PG-rated billboard, the mom is lying. Far more likely is the fact that she spouted off her opinion of the billboards every time the fam stopped at an intersection where one was placed.
The article even implies as much in its opening sentence! "As Ursula Pyland drives around the San Fernando Valley with her two children, her stomach churns when the family car pulls up to certain intersections," it reads.
"It's almost like there's a prostitute standing on the corner," said Pyland, 33. "There's a woman for sale." And the reader is expected to believe that she never shared that sentiment with her kids? Uh-huh.
But leave it to the local media to take this absurd campaign seriously and devote many column inches to it. Maybe NBC4's success in getting a poor slob who worked for traffic enforcement fired for his unwitting participation for one minute in a porn shoot in 2008 has emboldened other outlets. Let's not forget that NBC4's yellow journalism also resulted in the ouster (i.e. forced retirement) in 2012 of Jimmy Price, L.A.’s longtime parking enforcement chief, as well as the forced resignation of his deputy chief, 30-year veteran Rudy Carrasco.
Surely, the Daily News, CBS Los Angeles and KNX 1070, all of whom have covered this story, are just doing their jobs reporting on the attempt by Pyland to force the billboard companies to censor their ads, but why then use the word "onslaught" to define the "dozens of racy advertisements for the 'Xposed' strip club" that can be found scattered around the San Fernando Valley?
The Xposed ads are the ones that bother Pyland the most even though they contain no direct reference to sex. In fact, one would have to already know what type of clubs the ads are promoting to be offended by them. Which brings us right back to the poor 11-year-old boy, who could not possibly know that without having first been told.
Billboards for Xposed currently number about 50, scattered around the Valley and beyond. In fact, there have been other complaints about the billboards, including in March of this year when residents of Bel-Air complained about an Xposed ad for a club located more than a dozen miles away. The residents also complained that the ad was near a school bus pick-up and drop-off location. A similar complaint was lodged by Westwood Village residents in 2011.
But at least in those cases the complainants had a somewhat legitimate argument related to the questionable location of the particular ad. Not so with Pyland, who wants all of the Xposed billboard ads banned.
CBS also quoted an unnamed man, who said, “It’s one thing to use a beautiful girl to sell a Chevrolet if you think people won’t buy it without her. It’s another thing to put up 50 club signs like that.”
Really? How exactly is it "another thing?"
In fact, the billboard company adheres to strict guidelines when it comes to ads for sexually-oriented businesses like Xposed. According to Lamar Advertising, which operates the billboards that carry the Xposed ads, the company's “Advertising Copy Acceptance Policy” requires the following:
Lamar will accept copy for a sexually-oriented business (SOB) with the following guidelines:
-Lamar’s local General Manager, in consultation with the Regional Manager, will decide which areas within his/her market are appropriate for SOB ads.
-No photographs or silhouettes will be accepted except tasteful head shots.
-Written copy must not be offensive.
-No SOB copy will be accepted near churches, schools or other such places.
-Regional Managers may impose stricter guidelines on the acceptance of SOB copy.
-Less restrictive guidelines apply in Las Vegas, NV and Times Square, NY.
The only possible issue one could have with respect to those guidelines and the Xposed ads is the locations of some of them. But again, it would appear from the guidelines that Lamar is very hands-on when it comes to those decisions.
