BEVERLY HILLS : Slamming the Door on Junk Handbills

They arrive one after another: dry-cleaning coupons, offers of free pizza, restaurant menus and more, all accumulating in an untidy heap on the doorstep.

Such is the problem in Beverly Hills that officials there have launched an ambitious campaign against unwanted flyers, arguing that the handbills--besides being unattractive--can help burglars determine which homes to hit.

“We’ve had a couple of home burglaries that when the suspects were caught, they said it was the stuff left at the door that tipped them off,” said City Manager Mark Scott.

Under a new city ordinance, door-to-door distributors of leaflets will be required to pick up a “refusal list” at the time they buy or renew their business licenses. The list will contain the addresses of residents who have filed a written statement to the city asking that they not receive handbills.

Offenders will receive a warning for their first violation and subsequently face fines ranging from $100 to $500, officials say.

The program has prompted a massive response.

On April 20, the city sent out almost 20,000 letters announcing the refusal-list plan, and in a week and a half 3,000 refusal requests had been received, said Don Oblander, city director of finance.

So many residents are calling in, in fact, that a city employee will be assigned full time to compiling the list, Oblander said.

“The requests to be on the refusal list are coming in faster than we can open them,” said Oblander, whose department is in charge of maintaining the list.

Among the program’s advocates is resident Ellen Stern Harris, who has been urging the city to regulate unsolicited advertising material since 1992.

“My number one concern is public safety,” Harris said. “In the winter, it is the chimney-sweeping stuff. In the summertime, we get swimsuit stuff. The menus never stop coming, and landscapers leave cards on your steps. All these flyers are a dead giveaway that no one is at home.”

She said she would prefer that advertisers switch to sending advertisements through the mail because she would have the option of stopping the mail delivery when she is away from home.

“It is not that I don’t want to learn about these things,” Harris said. “I just don’t want (the advertisements) to impair my property’s well-being.”

Beverly Hills police agree that the handbills, left on doorsteps and wedged in door handles, are a telltale sign that a resident may not be home.

They say a burglary suspect they arrested in February told them he took flyers into account when deciding which homes to enter. The man is suspected of burglarizing at least a dozen homes in Beverly Hills, police spokesman Lt. Frank Salcido said.

The new program, approved in January and being implemented now, serves the same purpose as a “no soliciting” sign on the property, said City Atty. Greg Stepanicich.

Last year, the City Council adopted an ordinance that prohibited the delivery of flyers to residences, but the law was challenged by handbill distribution companies on the ground that it was unconstitutional because it prevented delivery of religious and political material.

This time, the city ordinance applies only to commercial advertising, Stepanicich said.