Banner Sales for Soccer Flags From Beverly Hills

For those who don’t want to forget the World Cup just yet, get to Beverly Hills.

The city is selling its teal-green, 6-foot “Beverly Hills Salutes the World” banners that hung over Wilshire Boulevard during the world championship soccer tournament last month. More than a dozen flags have been sold, and 85 remain, said Beverly Hills Visitor’s Bureau spokeswoman Catherine Churchill.

The banners’ designer, Tim Schwartz, 25, is surprised by their popularity. “I’m baffled by it,” he said. “No one has ever really wanted any of the other banners we’ve had.”

Churchill said fans from as far away as Georgia and Alaska have been inquiring about the banners, which are priced at $100.

What exactly will these people do with the double-sided silk and vinyl banners?

“It’s a keepsake for the World Cup Games,” said Sally Haynie of Laurenceville, Ga., who came to Los Angeles with her family for the soccer final at the Rose Bowl in which Brazil defeated Italy 3-2. The banner will be hanging in the Haynies’ downstairs game room.

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MAMA MIA: We see a lot of groups demonstrate over a lot of things at a lot of places here on the Westside, but this announcement really caught our eye: About 100 mothers will hold a “breast-feeding sit-in” at the Westside Pavilion on Friday.

Surely, this must be one of the highlights of World Breastfeeding Week (that’s this week, in case you forgot), organized by the La Leche League, an organization that discourages bottle-feeding as unnatural and unhealthful.

“Mother’s milk is nature’s fast food, arrives always at the perfect temperature and is at two convenient locations near you,” the group said in announcing the event.

Local breast-feeding advocate Shanda Lear says there is a stigma attached to mothers who breast-feed in public. To show that it can be done discreetly and tastefully, she helped organize the event at the Gymboree Playcenter in the Pico Boulevard mall.

“It’s not a protest or a demonstration, but a celebration,” Lear said.

But it is an interesting way to milk publicity.

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FROM THE MAN-BITES-DOG FILE: It was a reversal of the automobile-hits-pedestrian accident. Or so it seemed. Beverly Hills police have arrested a man who allegedly flung himself against a parked car and then pretended to have been hit by the vehicle.

Police said officers watched last week as Walter Leroy Moore III leaped out at a white 1991 Jaguar that had stopped moments before at the end of a Beverly Hills alley.

Moore then limped up to the surprised and shaken driver and claimed that although he was unhurt, the collision had broken a bottle of expensive prescription medicine he had been carrying in a brown paper bag that hit the fender, police said.

He allegedly showed the unidentified elderly driver the bag containing pills and a broken bottle with a $14 price tag. Moore added that there were actually two bottles in the bag, and police said the woman gave him $30 to pay for the medicine.

Moore then walked away without a limp, the officers said. In fact, he began to run when police attempted to stop him, said Beverly Hills Police Lt. Frank Salcido.

Moore, 29, of Los Angeles, was arrested for defrauding under false pretenses, resisting arrest and for an outstanding warrant. He was being held at the county jail in lieu of $28,500 bail.