A Billboard Career Goes Up in Smoke

After months of silently splashing San Diego billboards with painted anti-smoking warnings, Donald G. House couldn’t have made his final assault with much more fanfare.

With an extension pole tucked inside a crutch and a spray-paint can strapped to his leg, House pretended to be injured as he made his way into Thursday afternoon’s San Diego Padres game.

With 19,292 assembled, House dropped his crutch, pulled out the pole and affixed the can to a fishing line, then drew an X and the word “No” on a huge Marlboro sign atop the center-field bleachers.

Just as the game began, San Diego police arrested House, who spent Thursday afternoon and Friday in jail, charged with a felony count of malicious destruction of property.

Police are trying to link the self-proclaimed “Billboard Bandit” to 45 other acts of vandalism, which he already has admitted to in published reports. He could be sentenced to 16 months to three years in state prison, and possibly a $10,000 fine as well.

Although his one-man effort to rid San Diego of cigarette advertising came to a temporary halt, House is pleased with the arrest, which he planned to maximum effect. He is seeking a trial on the larger issue of getting the federal government to ban all tobacco billboard ads.

“I think, in the court of public opinion, I’m going to win,” he said in a recent interview. “I don’t fear the consequences of the court. I expect the trial--if it goes to a trial--will add to the (stop-smoking) movement, so I don’t fear the trial. I don’t think the industry can hurt me legally.”

House’s crusade is far from unusual. Vandals in many cities have defaced tobacco billboards although few, like House, work alone.

But the way House went about it is atypical. He carefully staked out his sites, brought a ladder and doused the electricity. He even invited a reporter for the San Diego Union along, who chronicled House’s exploits without naming him. Prosecutors Friday were still trying to decide whether the reporter should be charged as an accessory to the crime or whether he will be sought solely as a witness.

The “Billboard Bandit’s” sprayed messages range from “Smoking Kills” and “Let’s Stop These Ads” to “300,000 Died in 1990” and “Cancer Ain’t Suave.”

In a letter he sent to the news media, House conceded that his manner of getting attention is “unorthodox and illegal,” but that he could think of no other way to attack tobacco advertising, which he said promotes “our most lethal drug.”

Having once tried to lead a petition drive to get a statewide ballot on the issue and discovering that federal laws preempt all state and local regulations, House decided that “we are now prohibited at the state and local level from legislating any protection against the marketing of this dangerous product.”

A San Diego native who is self-employed and married with children, House said he is especially disturbed by billboards because of their possible impact on children. He called his anti-smoking campaign “kind of like a war. A war where there are lives at stake.”

Although some say House may have taken his crusade to extremes, many support the end result of his efforts. A recent state Department of Health Services survey shows that nearly 60% of those interviewed support a ban on tobacco billboard ads.

In the meantime, millions of dollars from California’s tobacco tax initiative are paying for a continuing campaign of anti-smoking advertisements on television, radio and billboards to battle the tobacco companies.

Debbie Kelley, a San Diego spokeswoman for the American Lung Assn., said House’s actions cannot be condoned, “but we can understand why people get frustrated about a situation that allows an industry to promote and sell a deadly product.”

Kelley said 434,000 people in the United States died from smoking in 1989.

To Tom Malinoski, a marketing executive for Gannett Outdoor Co. Inc., whose cigarette billboards have been vandalized several times, House is just a run-of-the-mill criminal.

“It’s plain old vandalism, and I’m happy he’s caught,” Malinoski said. “He says he wants his day in court. It seems he will get it. If this happens again, he’ll be one of the first people who we will contact.”

He said the billboards rent for up to $5,000 a month, depending on size and location.

Police said they are looking at House in connection with 45 acts of vandalism involving Gannett and two other billboard advertising companies. Tobacco billboards have been hit in Point Loma, Pacific Beach, Clairemont, Old Town, Kearny Mesa and Lemon Grove, among other areas.

Detective Sandi Angotti, who is investigating the case, said she feels little sympathy for House or his actions.

“I have the same concerns about him that I’d have about someone who is worried about cholesterol and spray-paints warnings on Alpha Beta stores or someone who spray-paints ‘Jesus Saves’ on the doors of non-Christians,” she said. “It’s all how you go about it.”

Times staff writer Tony Perry contributed to this report.