Weeding It Out

VENTURA —  What looks like a giant marijuana leaf looming over Ventura Avenue has enraged a group of west side residents who are calling for its removal.

Residents say the billboard, an advertisement for Hemp Shampoo, sends a pro-drug message to children.

But a spokeswoman for Alterna, which makes the shampoo, says the leaf is not marijuana. It is hemp, used in products ranging from rope to clothing to lotions.

The debate comes at a time when many Avenue residents are working diligently to spruce up the area’s depressed, poverty-stricken image by clearing out slumlords, cracking down on gang members and cleaning up West Park.

The billboard, some say, represents a setback in those efforts.

Community Council President Mike Del Dosso said that about a dozen residents have called him complaining about the billboard.

“The first person who brought it to my attention was a kid,” Del Dosso said. “He asked me, ‘Why is there a marijuana leaf on a sign on Ventura Avenue?’ I explained to him that the hemp plant is used for other things.

“I could kind of see a puzzled look on his face. . . . It [the billboard] sends kids a mixed message.”

The matter will be discussed at Thursday night’s community council meeting, Del Dosso said. Members will decide whether a subcommittee should work on the sign-removal effort, although some already have expressed their concerns to hair-care company officials.

Others say they plan to push for a city ordinance that would apply stricter rules to billboard content. As it stands, city officials do not review the content of billboards before they are erected, Associate City Planner Ann Grant said.

“And I don’t know of any ordinance that would allow us to do that,” she said. “That might bring up First Amendment rights issues.”

Grant said she was not aware of the uproar created by the billboard. Officials at the hair-care company, however, learned of the concerns after residents began calling them earlier this week.

The 12-by-24-foot billboard advertises a new hair-care product manufactured by Westwood-based Alterna. It is among more than 100 billboards and bus-shelter posters that have popped up over the past few weeks in Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange counties. The two others in Ventura County are on Lewis Road in Camarillo and on the Ventura Freeway in Oxnard.

The campaign is aimed not only at selling the product, but at raising public awareness on the benefits of hemp, said Kimberlee Jensen-Mitchell, the company spokeswoman.

“Let me say right off the bat that it’s not a marijuana leaf, it’s a hemp leaf,” she said. “Hemp is not a drug. It’s a viable and ecologically correct commodity.”

The shampoo contains hemp seed oil, one of the richest sources of essential fatty and amino acids, she said, adding that hemp seeds are not controlled substances.

The billboards, she noted, contain a disclaimer stating “No THC (Drugs).” THC is derived from the dried leaves and flowering tops of the pistillate hemp.

Since the campaign was launched in mid-March, Ventura residents have been the only ones to demand the removal of a billboard--or at least the offending, head-turning hemp leaf, she said.

The ad, which depicts forest-green hemp leaves sprouting out the back of a bottle of shampoo, has stained the area’s image, residents say.

“If it had been just the shampoo without the marijuana leaf, I would have no objection to it,” said Heidi Sohn, who is heading the anti-billboard effort. “But the most prominent feature on the billboard is the symbol of an illegal drug. That is an insult to me and my neighborhood.”

Sohn is a member of the Westside Community Council, which was launched three years ago to clean up Ventura Avenue.

“It appears that the company is targeting a low-income neighborhood,” she said. “They think that we find this symbol attractive or that we can identify with it, and therefore we would want to put it in our hair. But low-income does not mean low standards or low values.”

But Jensen-Mitchell said the company has not targeted low-income neighborhoods and has erected much larger 14-by-48-foot billboards in Sunset Beach, Tarzana and Pasadena.

Still, many people do not see the merits in the billboard campaign.

“We wish them well in their campaign, but not with that leaf,” said Sharon Troll, a volunteer at the city’s west side police storefront. She said she has fielded many calls from residents angry over the billboard.

“They can put bubbles, or a head of hair or somebody shampooing up there. Something nice and clean. But not a marijuana leaf. That’s not OK.”