BY: Unknown LOCATION: Dufferin Grove PHOTO BY: Jeremy Gilbert FIELD NOTES: Billboards: A harmless source of income for property owners or an eyesore and intrusion on public space? Billboard takeovers: vandalism that’s not necessarily well executed or a relief from the near-constant harangue of messages telling us to shop? The funny thing about many of [...]

Public space activists are claiming a big victory today: the Ontario Court of Appeal has just upheld the validity of the City’s billboard tax, created in 2009 and challenged by the outdoor advertising industry. The background: in December 2009, after years of discussion and a concerted campaign by public space activists, the municipal government passed [...]

If invasive roadside advertising has you driven to distraction, public space activist Dave Meslin would like to remind you that you have a voice, and on December 14, a chance to use it. On that date the City will be hosting a public consultation, where Torontonians will have the opportunity to discuss a proposal put [...]

   At the Planning and Growth Management Committee meeting this afternoon at City Hall, councillors voted to appeal a recent court decision that gutted the new tax on billboards in Toronto, which council passed a little over a year ago. The billboard industry called the tax’s legality into question; the court’s response was to uphold [...]

Photo by D.A. Cooper/Torontoist. The Toronto Street Advertising Takeover, which we reported on earlier this week, replaced street advertisements with art in locations all around downtown. So many ad pillars and billboards were taken over that it was impossible for us to photograph all the results. Fortunately, TOSAT’s organizers thought of that: participants were encouraged [...]

Six days ago, we told you that City Council was about to discuss a proposed new sign bylaw and tax. Today, they finished. After seven years of campaigning by public space and arts activists, two years of research and work by city staff, and a day and a half of debate in the Council Chamber, [...]

76 Church Street. Photo courtesy of Illegal Signs. The billboard industry is—obviously—in the business of getting messages across. This they have managed to do, with a vengeance. In anticipation of today’s City Council debate on a proposed new billboard bylaw and tax, the billboard industry has been using its own platform to communicate its deep [...]

Photo by Michael Chrisman/Torontoist. Late last night the City’s proposed new billboard bylaw and tax [PDF] cleared a major hurdle, unanimously passing through the Planning and Growth Management Committee on its way to a hearing before the full City Council. The meeting ran ’til about 11 p.m. and had to be moved from one of [...]

We’ve been at City Hall a fair number of times, but it wasn’t until this week that we had the rather delightful experience of being met by a beatboxing duo at the front door or rocking out to OutKast in the Council Chamber. The occasion for this upending of formality? A town hall meeting, hosted [...]

Presence of Absence video billboard on the Toronto Eaton Centre. In the heart of the city’s shopping district, heartfelt tributes to loved ones lost are being spoken in the language of this consumer venue, the video billboard. Overlooking Yonge-Dundas Square, personal messages of mourning, paired with artworks on the subject of loss, are appearing every [...]

This is Jörg Cieslok. He runs Titan Outdoor Canada. He is six and a half feet tall and has a thick German accent. He has a low opinion of “grassroots groups” like residents associations. He regularly calls up Rami to yell at him. He is more responsible for illegal billboards in Toronto than almost any [...]