Toronto Notes

Toronto vs. billboards

Municipal bylaws are rarely interesting; the creation of new bylaws even less so. But Rami Tabello’s IllegalSigns.ca website is one of the few places where tracking bylaw offenders is actually kind of fun. We’ve been following his crusade against undue, unwanted and downright illegal advertising on Toronto’s buildings for some time now, watching as Tabello sifts through the mountains of variance applications he’s requested from city hall to point out the many errors and oversights made in advertisers’ favour. Despite resistance from city hall and the occasional legal threats, his success rate is rather impressive.

Consequently, the city has finally caught up with Tabello’s efforts and is currently in the process of creating a new sign bylaw. Even though amalgamation happened over 10 years ago, the former municipalities retained many of their individual laws, making it extra confusing for enforcement officials to determine which monstrous Madonna H&M billboards are legit. Compounding these disputes is the fact that most billboards are now easy-to-produce vinyl renderings, not the labour-intensive painted murals of the past. The new bylaws aim to create standard regulations for the entire city while also updating the lingo in order to tie up as many loopholes as possible.

But as the city addresses the legalities of outdoor advertising, they inadvertently open up a discussion of public advertising itself. There has been a handful of public consultations over the course of the past couple months. Fortunately, the city has even made available all the email comments that were submitted to the Sign Bylaw project. Here are a few of the highlights*:

“I urge you to stand up to the unethical greedy outdoor advertisers who for years have been thumbing their noses at city bylaws. They are leaches who care nothing about the liveability of our City. Their product only serves to clutter the landscape. They are purveyors of ugliness.”

“I was in Vermont this summer and I realized that one of the reasons that I was so relaxed is that there were no billboards except I think on the actual business or entry to their property. These signs were usually small but totally adequate to let me know that they were there and what they offered. Greatly reducing the number and size of billboards would cut down on the excessive stimulus that we are subjected to every day.”

“Walking along Yonge to Dundas Square makes me feel dizzy. All of the stimulants coming at me of things that do not matter make me want to scream.”

“The most offensive [signs] are the little ‘Map-in-the-Park’ things. Parks are meant to be places of beauty. It's clear that no tourist actually uses these fraudulent posts to get a map (the one in Allan Gardens isn't even accessible by a park sidewalk and has no purpose but to attract the Jarvis through traffic), so they are also dishonest, which makes them ugly both physically and morally.”

“I like the large video boards at Yonge and Dundas and in Chinatown at Spadina and Dundas.”

“I would like to see better publicized meetings about applications for billboard variances - it is my suspicion that a lot of people at least passively oppose the addition of new oversized billboards to their neighborhoods.”

“Advertising is not a problem but there is a need to be careful not to be overwhelmed by it.”


While the draft of the new sign bylaw won’t be available just yet, let’s hope that any extra time will be spent considering how to address the overwhelming support for stricter regulations, better enforcement and, ultimately, less billboards

* There are almost no pro-billboard comments within the entire seven-page list. Banksy would be proud.

Toronto Notes

Toronto news and views, updated every day. torontonotes@eyeweekly.com.

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