No passerby can miss the 20 feet by 60 feet billboard on the busy corner of Northern Blvd. and 162nd Street in Flushing. But whether these passersby can read the billboard is another matter.

This billboard advertising a Korean rental car company called “Happy Call,” is stirring controversy because it includes only Korean words and telephone numbers.

City councilman Tony Avella said state law requires commercial advertisements to include English. Yet, neither the state government nor the city government has an appropriate agency to enforce this law.

Avella urged the city government to deal with this problem in order to prevent conflict among communities. Many Chinese merchants, for example claim that most Chinese commercial advertisements include English, and that the problem is particular to the Korean community.

Because of recent immigration trends, the problems associated with non-English commercial advertising are rife in the Flushing area, with its many Chinese and Korean residents.

Community discomfort has arisen from the lack of enforcement of a 1990 state law that requires commercial advertisements to include English. The Happy Call billboard was placed on the roof of a building, and it troubled many non-Korean residents. Community leaders said that they welcome everyone who considers the United States a second home, and that they hope to become good neightbors with each other

Yet, seeing a billboard that they did not understand was quite disturbing.

City councilman John Liu did a study of commercial billboards and found that most did include English, although one has to look a little closer to find the English words on them.