Down the coast with Dana Parsons

We’ve all seen them. Some have elongated heads. Many have unusual-looking fingers. Some could pass for gorillas. Almost all appear to be over-caffeinated.

We’re talking about the folks with those hand-held signs that hawk products or tout businesses on our city streets. A common trick of the trade is to twirl the signs to attract attention. Most likely, it’s to relieve the incredible boredom the sign-holders must be experiencing.

Most of us either ignore them or find them mildly entertaining.

The city of Orange, however, is not easily amused. Citing residents’ complaints about people trying to sell mattresses, property, haircuts, massages and whatever else — creating distractions for drivers and inconveniences for pedestrians — the city council sallied forth months ago to do battle with hand-held signs.

On a 4-1 vote, with only Denis Bilodeau dissenting, the council asked its staff to draft ordinance changes to thwart the sign-twirlers. The loyal staff did its duty, sent a proposal to a compliant planning commission and then gave it to the council Tuesday.

The city sent code enforcement people to photograph the sign people in the act of being themselves. This was no rush job: the 41-page pdf file laying out the whole thing took someone a lot of time to compile.

In the end, council tabled the whole thing, meaning it’s probably a dead duck.

“I don’t want to spend any more time on this,” Bilodeau told his colleagues, adding that if someone wants to dress up in a clown suit on the corner of Tustin and Collins to entice him to get a haircut, let him try.

Bilodeau thought the whole thing infringed on personal freedoms and might hurt businesses in town. Although the council came to its senses, we wonder how the staff feels with all its hard work going up in smoke. Its seriousness of purpose is reflected in this excerpt from its report:

Code enforcement pictures showed “an individual sitting on a stool at the very edge of a curb and within a foot of a private driveway” and no more than 25 feet from a school crossing guard. The man on the stool was advertising a massage business with a 5 foot by 2 foot sign. There was more, the report indicated: “Approximately 30 yards further north is a man holding a similar sized sign and dressed in what appears to be a clown outfit, again standing next to a curb.”

The potential danger: The crossing guard had to compete with the man on the stool and the clown for drivers’ attention.

Wait till the words gets out that Orange doesn’t care about the safety of school kids.