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Locals Annoyed by Hollywood Sign Tourists

fortworthgal

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,646
Location
Panther City
Don't get so pissy :p

I swear she said that they have always had tourists, but that it has gotten much worse since GPS came about. Did I misunderstand her?

That's what I'm trying to understand. It sounds to me that the access always existed, just now the word is out, so to speak, and people are peeved.
 

Undertow

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,126
Location
Des Moines, IA, US
I have to agree with fortworthgal in at least one respect - why fight them when you could join them?

If you don't like the noise, that's understandable. Your community should become quite vocal with city hall. Meanwhile, slap a couple signs out front: $175 driveway parking, $100 yard parking.

Get Junior out there with some glow sticks at $10 a pop, and maybe set up a t-shirt stand in the lawn for sis with $40 shirts that read "I saw the sign and all I got was this lousy shirt". Heck, the community could buy out a vacant house and turn it into a tourist trap museum; proceeds applied towards the "Get the hell out of our neighborhood" fund.

Perhaps I'm being a bit crass but you might as well make a buck for all your troubles. Look at what they're doing at the John Wayne Birthplace in Winterset, IA - if folks are paying $5 to get into that run down little house for 2 minutes, might as well steal a couple more dollars and build something proper. I'm sure the residents of Madison County (who also sport a stupid set of now-plastic bridges everyone loves traipsing around town to see) wouldn't mind your money.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,559
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
That's how people who lived in ballpark neighborhoods used to do it. Front yards, driveways, any short bit of open space would be rented out for parking on game days, and enterprising neighborhood kids would approach people parking on the street with "Fifty cents to watch yer car, Mister?" Of course, if Mister didn't shell out the fifty cents, hard telling what might happen to his car.
 

1961MJS

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,369
Location
Norman Oklahoma
...

If you don't like the noise, that's understandable. Your community should become quite vocal with city hall. Meanwhile, slap a couple signs out front: $175 driveway parking, $100 yard parking.

Get Junior out there with some glow sticks at $10 a pop, and maybe set up a t-shirt stand in the lawn for sis with $40 shirts that read "I saw the sign and all I got was this lousy shirt". Heck, the community could buy out a vacant house and turn it into a tourist trap museum; proceeds applied towards the "Get the hell out of our neighborhood" fund....

Hi Undertow

Great idea, but probably not legal in CA. I'm sure that you'd have to get a business license for the parking, a different one for the t-shirts, and those have to be certified as not being made in a sweat shop, unless it's a foreign sweat shop. Glow sticks are illegal because if some kid bites into one, and tosses his cookies on your lawn, it's a hazardous material cleanup. I know I'm missing something, but this IS the bunch that were going to arrest a couple of 9 year olds for selling lemonade if memory serves.

Jeez, sometimes I crack myself up.
Later
 

sheeplady

I'll Lock Up
Bartender
Messages
4,479
Location
Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, USA
Great idea, but probably not legal in CA. I'm sure that you'd have to get a business license for the parking, a different one for the t-shirts, and those have to be certified as not being made in a sweat shop, unless it's a foreign sweat shop. Glow sticks are illegal because if some kid bites into one, and tosses his cookies on your lawn, it's a hazardous material cleanup. I know I'm missing something, but this IS the bunch that were going to arrest a couple of 9 year olds for selling lemonade if memory serves.

So wait... officials in California:
1. Won't enforce parking and traffic laws in the area
2. Haven't helped this neighborhood to privatize or gate itself (that we know of)
3. But do have time to threaten children

It's a bad sign for where we are headed folks.
 

rue

Messages
13,319
Location
California native living in Arizona.
So wait... officials in California:
1. Won't enforce parking and traffic laws in the area
2. Haven't helped this neighborhood to privatize or gate itself (that we know of)
3. But do have time to threaten children

It's a bad sign for where we are headed folks.

Yup. California is like no other state. Well, except maybe Washington State and Oregon.
 

Marc Chevalier

Gone Home
Messages
18,192
Location
Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California
That's how people who lived in ballpark neighborhoods used to do it. Front yards, driveways, any short bit of open space would be rented out for parking on game days, and enterprising neighborhood kids would approach people parking on the street with "Fifty cents to watch yer car, Mister?" Of course, if Mister didn't shell out the fifty cents, hard telling what might happen to his car.


The folks who live around West Adams in Los Angeles did this when much of the 1984 Olympics was held right next to their front yards.
 

Mr. Hallack

One of the Regulars
Messages
279
Location
Rockland Maine
Back in the day when I still lived in So. Cal I had friends visit from out of state or out of country that wanted to see the Hollywood sign, so we'd go out there and I'd show them the sign from a good vantage point, but not really up close. If they asked to go closer I told them, "well it looks the same, only the letters are taller" And that would usually satisfy them. I didn't want to take them closer cause the streets up there are a pain to navigate through.
 

Tomasso

Incurably Addicted
Messages
13,719
Location
USA
Taking the Hollywood sign off the GPS POI (points of interest) list might remedy the situation, or at least roll back the clock a few years. Or maybe program the GPS to direct drivers to a commercial location, of which there are several, albeit not as close.
 

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