Big Ads are Hazards to Safety, Business

"When Patricia Barragan opened her physical therapy practice in an office building on Santa Monica Boulevard, she picked the location in part because of the sweeping views.

With windows that look north toward the Santa Monica Mountains, the fourth-floor suite gave Barragan's clients a calming environment -- until last month, when her landlord covered the north side of the building with a two-story "supergraphic" advertising a global bank chain.

"When I came to work after Christmas, I had this horrible orange drape that diminished the light in my activity room and my treatment room by almost 40%," she said. "The first patients who came in at 7 o'clock said, 'What is this? This is depressing. I don't want to be treated in these depressing rooms.' "

Barragan is one of a growing number of workers furious that supergraphics -- large vinyl or plastic signs stretched across the sides of buildings -- are darkening their offices, wrecking their views and alienating their customers."