People standing along Santa Monica Boulevard to view the upcoming LA Pride parade may be waving hand held flags with the West Hollywood logo on them.
The West Hollywood City Council asked City Manager Paul Arevalo tonight to consider having the city make such flags and distribute them free of charge. Its decision came in a discussion of a proposal to license the city logo for commercial use, which the Council rejected.
Larry Block, owner of The Block Party store on Santa Monica Boulevard, who lobbied for restoring the gay rainbow flag to the roof of City Hall, had asked the city for the right to use the logo for hand held flags. The logo is an outline of the city limits constructed of small squares in the colors of the rainbow flag. It is trademarked by the city.
Council members objected to using the logo to make money and some expressed concern that its use on commercial products would cheapen it. “I’m not convinced that we really need to make money off our logo,” said Councilmember Abbe Land. Councilmember John Duran said: “It cheapens the city’s logo to make it available for commercial exploitation.”
Councilmember John Heilman said he was concerned about the city giving a contract to Block to produce the logo products given that Block has announced that he’s a candidate for a seat on the Council in the March 2015 election.
Block said that hand held flags with the West Hollywood logo would help the city put a West Hollywood imprint on the LA Pride event. The Pride parade, which this year will be held on June 8, and the Pride festival, held at West Hollywood Park on June 6 through 8, is staged entirely in West Hollywood but is branded as a Los Angeles event.
If they do allow this idea to go forward, I say take the funds from sales and put it toward the homeless & other pressing needs within the city limits.
Go! Larry Block, GO ! Cant wait to see flags waiving on June 8 !
Exactly, Riley! That’s exactly what a city logo is there for. We should put Larry Block in charge of all city merchandising, then maybe we’d really be ‘in the black’ without applying creative accounting of debt and we wouldn’t have to pay 10% annual bond servicing fees at 8% interest for $30 million borrowed.
Hmmmm…I have a beautiful mug with the Beverly Hills sign/logo and a great oversized shopping bag with the Beverly Hills sign on it and yet…I don’t think BH has been cheapened by it. What’s wrong with marketing the city on merchandise? I “heart” NY became famous and made NYC buckets of money. But WeHo is not really good at marketing itself. Too bad. It could be a great revenue stream.
If there was any commercial demand for the logo, then the sweatshops would produce them in a second and vendors would sell them illegally just like any other logo or slogan.
I commend Larry for putting this idea forward and his efforts to put the West Hollywood imprint on LA Pride.. with all the CSW discussions about LA Pride not having a West Hollywood identity.. the best idea of all is these little flags. And I do not agree with the above criticism, the Block Party store is the only place in town that celebrates West Hollywood with tee shirts and cards and magnets, I know .. I work there and know first hand…..and theres not another store like us that has as much pride of the West Hollywood
The cheap commercialization of the city logo was never a good idea….and now, after the right decision by the city council, the back-peddling and spin is amusing.
I like the idea of the city creating a “shop” so that profits can go back to the public or that items can be sold “at-cost.” No offence to Larry Block. I do believe he is more interested in the community than making profits off the Weho merchandise. For now the free flags should suffice but eventually it would be nice to have a quality made flag and not a chintzy party favor.
Kudos to city council for not allowing anyone to profit from our logo. Its bad enough that the price of the festival keeps those who cant afford it from experiencing it. Profit mongers have always had their way to do as they please for events like this. We need to stop them any chance we can. If you want anything printed on t shirts, flags, mugs go to vista print and get it for one quarter what you would pay in a t shirt shop. the mark up is vulgar. if you pay $25.00 for a t shirt, the store… Read more »
Mission Accomplished. Thousands of West Hollywood Flags will line the parade route. For me, it was never about selling 200 flags for a buck and a half, it was about building the City of West Hollywood brand and being so proud of our new flag, and our new flag on city hall… and now thousands on the parade route. I’ve forwarded my source for a 12 day turnaround to Paul Arevalo.. and everybody will be waving West Hollywood flags at LA Pride! A city built on Pride. If you want your free city flag email the city manager [email protected] or… Read more »