L.A. City Council delays vote on ending ban on new murals

A vote on whether public murals should again be legal in Los Angeles has been delayed until Friday.

Councilman Jose Huizar asked for the delay to give the city attorney’s office more time to review language in the proposed mural ordinance. Huizar, who represents the downtown area and Boyle Heights, is a sponsor of the proposal.

Murals are regulated under the city’s sign laws. But new murals have been banned since 2003, when the City Council began challenging sign companies’ efforts to categorize commercial advertising as art murals.

The proposed ordinance, which had been scheduled for a City Council vote on Tuesday generated considerable debate as it worked its way through committee hearings.

City Hall officials and neighborhood activists support the idea of public murals but disagree on how to allow some communities to “opt out” of allowing them.

The council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee voted three weeks ago to forward the ordinance to the full council without a recommendation.

City officials have said murals created without permits during the moratorium will be grandfathered in under the proposed law’s provisions.

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