In a dramatic escalation of the war against illegal supergraphics in Los Angeles, authorities have jailed a businessman accused of posting an eight-story movie advertisement on an office building at one of Hollywood's busiest intersections.
Kayvan Setareh, 49, of Pacific Palisades was arrested at his home Friday night and ordered held on $1 million bail. An arrest warrant obtained by Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich accuses Setareh of three misdemeanor city code violations, two of them related to the city sign law, according to William Carter, Trutanich's chief deputy.
The arrest was an unusually aggressive move by Trutanich and comes less than a week after the city attorney filed a separate lawsuit involving more than a dozen other supergraphics scattered across the city. Just days after that lawsuit was filed, workers used bolts and wire to wrap the new ad around the face of a 1928 office building on the northeast corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, a major tourist destination along Hollywood's Walk of Fame. Trutanich's office said Setareh had an "ownership interest" in the building.
City officials suspect that the unpermitted image -- an advertisement for the film "How to Train Your Dragon" -- was timed to coincide with the 82nd annual Academy Awards ceremony next week, which is staged at the Kodak Theatre down the street.
Read more from the Los Angeles Times.
