2nd Law Aimed at Racist Flyers Approved

Responding to a series of racist flyers inserted in supermarket products in the San Fernando Valley area, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to make such acts a crime.

The action comes about a month after the Los Angeles City Council passed a similar law to plug a loophole that had made it difficult to prosecute a Glendale man who is believed to have placed flyers in items ranging from Pop Tarts to 12-packs of beer in grocery stores throughout Southern California.

Violations of both the city and county laws are misdemeanors, punishable by a maximum of up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The county ordinance will take effect next month.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who authored the motion, said the law is necessary to battle what he said is an increase in acts of bigotry.

“We’ve seen clearly an increase in reported bigoted instances in the county and in the San Fernando Valley in particular,” he said. “There have been reports in the west end of my district of these items being slipped into lockers in schools; we have noted the increase in skinhead activity around the county, and we have received complaints about these bigoted materials being inserted in boxes at stores.”

“We can’t do a lot about what people say, or think, nor should we want to, but we can do something about their actions,” Yaroslavsky said.

Previously, local law enforcement and legal officials found it difficult to prosecute such crimes. For instance, product tampering laws require that the package seal must be broken.

Likewise, vandalism laws require damage to the product. And trespassing laws could not apply because the supermarkets where the products are sold are public places.

In January, however, the Los Angeles City Council passed a similar law based on the alleged activities of Allan Eric Carlson, 31, who law enforcement officials believe placed leaflets into supermarket products, which insulted African Americans, Jews and Latinos.

One flyer suspected of being linked to Carlson showed a dark-skinned man being riddled with machine-gun fire. It stated: “How’s this for a new slogan for the U.S. Border Patrol? ‘If it ain’t white . . . WASTE IT!’ ”

An accompanying phone number was provided for those who “wish to deport or kill them.”

Carlson was arrested on suspicion of stamping racist messages on notebooks in 1993, and last year was ordered by a court to stop stuffing flyers into product packaging.

Still, in 1995, the California Grocers Assn. and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith reported that there had been a threefold rise in flyers bearing Carlson’s hotline number.

Carlson could not be reached for comment.

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The county ordinance states: “No person shall place or insert any writing in or on any box, package or other container containing a consumer product offered for sale unless permitted to do so by the owner, manager or person in charge or control of the premises where the product is stored or offered for sale.”

It adds, “The term ‘writing’ shall mean any form or representation or communication, including letters, words or pictorial representations, and shall include handbills, notices or any form of advertising.”

Yaroslavsky said he was not worried that the ordinance violates free speech rights, because, he said: “You have every right to be a bigot and to stand in front of a Safeway store and say things. But you don’t have the right to slip it into a product.”