Poll: Too Much or Too Little Filming in Old Town?

The lights flash, the cameras roll, and the parking spaces get blocked off.

The glitz and glamour of filming commercials, TV shows and movies in brings attention to local businesses, but that appeal can be tempered by the logistical hassle that a film crew brings.

The city is constantly trying to balance shopkeepers' need to keep their businesses accessible with the very lucrative opportunities that film shoots present. On Thursday, the city will revisit its filming policies in a meeting with local merchants.

"We're going to have a kind of open forum for the merchants," said city spokesman Dan Bell.

Monrovia's downtown district is particularly attractive to production companies looking to depict a small town atmosphere, so the city has been the subject of countless shoots over the years, including several recent ones.

A Harley Davidson commercial currently running shows a biker cruising down Myrtle Avenue, and a Miller Lite ad plastered all over sports channels features an "unmanly" man riding a scooter past , Bell said.

Bell acknowledges that filming can pose a problem by tying up parking spaces and reducing foot traffic to shops, but he said the benefits usually outweigh the costs.

The city collects a fee from every shoot, and that money goes into a pot that funds much of the Monrovia Old Town Advisory Board's budget. Last year, about $20,000 of MOTAB's $65,000 budget came from filming, Bell said. The film crews also spend money at local businesses, which helps to offset the drop in patronage to some shops, he said.

In addition to city fees, business owners negotiate their own financial arrangements with production companies that film in front of their stores. Those rates vary and are determined by a variety of factors, Bell said.

Sarven Kazanzi, owner of , said that he'd like to have merchants be more involved in the filming process. He said he's had problems getting proper notice from filming companies and would like to see a more standardized process for paying merchants.

"I just feel like the merchants here should be more involved with the situation and we've been so lenient with the filming companies," Kazanzi said. "I would like to go to this meeting and find out what other people in town's take is on the situation."