Gerry Paules’ one-man campaign to keep California sunny

PHOTO by ZACK PIANKO

If you’ve driven by Gerry Paules’ barber shop at Bellflower and Spring, next to the Christian bookstore, you might have noticed the stark blue and red sidewalk panels in front of the door. You might also have noticed the enormous banner draped above the entrance: “HEADQUARTERS FOR THE PROPOSITION TO KEEP DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME ALL YEAR LONG.”

Gerry Paules is 69 years old. He first got into barbering around 50 years ago. He cut hair for 18 years. Then he became a bus driver, and did that for two decades—although through all those years he says he never let his barbering license expire. “Then I came back here,” Paules says, looking around his shop. “This is my return.”

For 15 years, Paules has owned, worked in, and decorated Gerry’s Barber Shop almost entirely on his own. The shop itself teeters on local legend status. The interior is densely adorned with model carnivals, mirrors, movie posters, mannequins and model airplanes that hang from the ceiling. He calls those model planes “A History of Air Flight,” in commemoration of the airport nearby. Also quietly tucked in the back corner is a small liquor collection—little more than an opened bottle of Popov and two wine bottles. Gerry’s Barber Shop is half American history museum, half Spencer’s Gifts.

The Press-Telegram ran a piece on the barber shop in 1994, and a few years back a loyal customer shot a video promoting the shop. Paules’ TV, where the video plays, is covered in rhinestones and surrounded by homemade videocassettes. “I also have videos here that I sell of classic cartoons—I’m up to volume 60,” he says.

Then, two years ago, the sign went up. That’s when Gerry’s Barber Shop officially became the Headquarters for the Proposition to Keep Daylight Savings Time All Year Long. Paules keeps a petition on the coffee table, next to a Playboy magazine. Wearing a gray and black zoot suit and trimming a flat top, he boasts that he’s gathered 1,500 signatures for the cause.

“There’s been only about two people who say, ‘No, I like it the way it is, let it get dark,’’’ says Paules. “But for me, when it’s midnight at five o’clock, you’re tired—everybody’s irritated. You want to go out in the back yard without stepping in dog shit.”

The flat-topped customer suddenly chimes in: “Yeah, you don’t want it to be a dungeon outside when it’s 4 o’clock at night.”

Paules doesn’t have to do too much campaigning. “I always have people come in off the street and say, ‘Where do I sign?’” he says. Sometimes, he says, his cause even attracts new business for the shop. “Oh yes, it’s brought me some action,” Paules says. “They come in here and say, ‘Oh a barber shop! Well, how much do you charge?’ I get ladies who come in [to sign the petition] and they bring their husbands in later.” Nonetheless, things don’t look great for the proposition. Paules needs around 432,000 more signatures to get the petition on the ballot. At his current rate, it’ll be 600 years before he’ll qualify. That’s pretty much the definition of quixotic.

Paules says he doesn’t do any research on the topic. If he did, he might discover he has plenty of allies. A California energy commission report released in May 2001 found that keeping our clocks “sprung forward” every year means our lights go on later, and thus reduces energy consumption. That same month California legislators sent a resolution to Washington, D.C., asking for the federal government’s permission to do just what Paules’ petition proposes—extend DST year-round.

Then 9/11 happened, and the motion was set aside, and has remained so ever since.

There are dozens of other facts to back up Paules, too. Economists have advocated DST because it encourages people to stay out later and spend more money. Studies have concluded that DST, in the long term, improves driver visibility, preventing accidents. A 1974 study even found that DST can help prevent crime by allowing people to come home in daylight.

Paules’ campaign is a classic example of ideas that are too good to ever happen—win-win proposals everyone can get behind but remain too esoteric to muster up political will. Paules says he’s been laughed at because of the odds stacked against him, but the case for Paules’ cause is undeniable. He even has history on his side.

Consider William Willett, an English businessman who once championed a similarly desperate cause. In 1907, while horseback riding in the English countryside, he invented Daylight Savings Time. He spent the rest of his life advocating DST but only managed to recruit one Member of Parliament before his death in 1915. One year later, countries all over the world began to adopt DST. In 1934, Winston Churchill even wrote a piece commending Willett’s pursuit.

In that piece, Churchill wrote, “Let us, then, as we put forward our clocks for another summer, drink a silent toast to the memory of William Willett, who spared neither labour nor money . . . in his advocacy of this great reform.”

Similarly, let us keep forward our clocks indefinitely, break out the Popov, and drink a boisterous toast with Paules, whose pursuit should be a reminder to us all that there are no lost causes. “I tell people, don’t laugh. Don’t laugh at me. This is California, we’re the sunshine state. Let it shine a little bit.”

Tags: ban, barbershop, Daylight Savings Time, gerry paules, Long Beach