UPDATE: News reports say today’s 10 AM Los Angeles City Hall meeting about proposed new restrictions on paparazzi included reps from West Hollywood, Malibu, the Screen Actors Guild, and LA County Sheriff Lee Baca. But no members of the LAPD were present at the hearing.  That’s because Chief William Bratton has consistently opposed new legislation that would further restrict and penalize overly aggressive photographers. He called today’s confab a “total waste of time”, “grandstanding foolishness”, and a “farce”.

But look at what this tool arrogantly told KNBC this AM about the paparazzi problem (after the confab was prompted by the LAPD’s decision to spend $25K to transport Britney Spears from her home to the hospital because of all the photog chaos):

“If you notice, since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving; Paris is out of town not bothering anybody, thank god; and, evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don’t seem to have much of an issue. If the ones that attract the paparazzi behave in the first place, like we expect of anybody, that solves about 90% percent of the problem. The rest of it we can deal with.”

Sheriff Baca, by contrast, told reporters, “I’m here to try and find a balanced answer. There’s no question that the industry of public information is an important one to protect and I think that there’s responsibility on the side of entertainers as there is responsibly on the side of those seeking to take photographs.”

Meanwhile, the city of Malibu has turned to Ken Starr, the former independent counsel who investigated the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and now dean of the Pepperdine law school, to bring together experts in the media and legal community about the problem.

See my previous, How To Really Cure Stalkarazzi Plague.

Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.

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