OH, SNAP Corralling the shooters (Photo: Getty Images)

L.A. City Councilman Dennis P. Zine wants to build a paparazzi space bubble—and not just around celebrities but the foot and car traffic, emergency care facilities, homes, and businesses they bunch up like a cheap thong. His law would create "safety zone of clear space that would protect public safety," according to his recent city council proposal. And it would consider requiring celebrity photographers to apply for licenses. If they were found to be violating the space bubble, they'd lose their license, and the money they made off of the photos would be forfeited, though it's unclear yet to whom. City staff are expected to take the proposed ordinance to committee by March 1.

"The straw that broke the camel's back is the $24,000 we spent to escort an L.A. City ambulance to the hospital," Zine tells Radar. "I'm not infringing upon the right to take a picture," he adds, nor is he looking to pass a law to single out celebrities for special protection. the goal, he says, is to give cops a tool to control the renegade shooters. "I'm concerned about the impact they have on the general public." Zine was an L.A.P.D. motorcycle patrol coordinator, and he still serves as a reserve cop. "It's not only costly," he says of the new horde, "It's hazardous and unacceptable."

Predictably, the photo agencies aren't playing along. "It just doesn't make sense," says Gary Morgan, CEO of Splash News, one of the largest celebrity photo agencies in the country. "There are already laws on the books to handle this."

Two years ago, for example, California passed a state "anti-stalkerazzi" law that makes photogs responsible for three times the damages they cause while blocking celebrities or getting in car wrecks—plus they lose any profits from the photos.

Though he agrees the laws should punish thugs, gang members, and ex valet parkers who pick up and camera and call themselves photographers, Morgan says entertainment shooters are just as much a part of the landscape now as lensmen from AP or Reuters, whom he says join his guys in the scrum. "Entertainment journalism has become as mainstream if not more mainstream than hard news. Like it or not, it has a bona fide influence," Morgan tells Radar.

That said, Morgan adds, if the L.A.P.D. wanted to allow his crew members to get press passes, he'd be happy to play along—and, of course, enjoy the parking and access benefits that come along with the cops-issued badge. "Right now, the L.A.P.D. doesn't issue press passes for celebrity photographers, so there's no way of knowing who's who," Morgan says.