Why people keep trying to erase the Hollywood sign from Google Maps (2014)

If I lived there, I might just pave a few extra parking spaces into my property and charge $5 for first 30 minutes and $5 each additional 60 minutes thereafter. Buy lemonade, hiking maps, souvenir magnets, and postcards from the kiosk. 10%-off coupons for checking in on social media. Hey! Hey! Hey mister; hey lady! You wanna buy Hollywood Sign t-shirt? Hollywood Sign keychain fob? How about shopped photo with your name in place of the real sign? Don't just take selfies! Everybody takes selfies! Buy something no one else has; buy this volume-printed diorama of the sign and surrounding park, signed by the artist! Limited edition!

Whenever I have been a tourist, the single best way to make me want to leave and never return is to subject me to a continuous barrage of sales pitches for useless attraction-related crap. Example: every square centimeter of Disney World. That's like the ultimate goal of merchandising, when it all sort of collapses into this state where everything becomes an advertisement for itself, and everything you buy subtly encourages you to buy more, or maybe just put all your cash in a paper envelope and deposit it into a slot under the Walt and Mickey statue.

That's how you ruin an attraction. You don't just make it secret and exclusive; that only makes people want it more. Instead, you relentlessly try to squeeze every last drop of money out of it. If you really want the people to stop coming, your Holy Grail is the online review that says, "Not worth the $10 parking space in some guy's front yard. Locals aggressively sell touristy crap, and the sign itself seems kind of cheap and pathetic from up close."

Of course, the downside is that unless you have some sort of "identify friend or foe" system in place, you get a dozen sales pitches every time you walk from your own driveway to your own house.

That's neither here nor there. People want to see an attraction. It's on public parkland. The residents, whatever their motivation, do not have a right to prevent that. They could petition the city for better access (hell no, they won't do that), or policy change. Instead, they use connections and money to do things like:

- illegally threaten tourists with the use of fake signs threatening civil or criminal sanctions - personally harass visitors - hire security guards who have been told to threaten people with trespass and arrest, illegally

Just like David Geffen's famous 'fake driveway'. Amazing how everyone in Malibu knows that it's not a real driveway. That he had no right to paint the curb red or yellow indicating fire lanes, etc. The police know it. The towing companies know it. Yet, every week, they book, ticket, and tow someone who also knows it (there have been cases where people have parked there with a print-out of the whole saga pinned to their window, to prevent the usual story, which is "well, we know it's not real, but you didn't and you parked there, so you were ignoring the law").

My sympathies are ... lacking.

From Wikipedia:

> Mantraps that use deadly force are illegal in the United States, and there have been notable tort law cases where the trespasser has successfully sued the property owner for damages caused by the mantrap. There is also the possibility that such traps could endanger emergency service personnel such as firefighters who must forcefully enter such buildings during emergencies. As noted in the important US court case of Katko v. Briney, "the law has always placed a higher value upon human safety than upon mere rights of property."

Thinking in those terms, a few spike strips on your lawn should be fine.

Vandalism, basically.