One year ago today, City Council's Executive Committee approved [PDF] the awarding of the street furniture contract—for the purposes of designing, building, owning, and maintaining bus shelters, garbage bins, ad pillars, and more for a period of twenty years in exchange for advertising rights—to Astral Media Outdoor, despite the fact that the company had absolutely no experience with "street furniture" and maintains dozens of illegal billboards in defiance of City Council.......

The province has ordered the City of Toronto to stop stonewalling in the face of freedom of information requests about allegedly illegal billboards. IllegalSigns.ca—"our hobby is destroying illegal billboards through the rule of law"—submitted a series of requests asking the City to release information about certain billboards. The City's Corporate Access and Privacy Unit balked. After receiving over 600 requests from the group in 2006—12% of all requests filed in the City—and after processing......

These pictures were not taken mid-transition. Photos by Jonathan Goldsbie.......

"This advertising space and/or building for lease" Photo of the west side of Yonge, at Gould, by Jonathan Goldsbie.......

Photo by Lina Aristizabal. Yesterday, January 21, was the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that decriminalized abortion in the United States. Monday marks the 20th anniversary of Canada's Morgentaler decision, a similar judgment that found the Criminal Code's abortion provision to be in violation of womens' Charter rights. In the Morgentaler case, Justice Bertha Wilson wrote the following:The decision whether to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a......

The Globe and Illegal Signs report today that Titan Outdoor Canada Company has asked the courts to save its sixteen vinyl billboards from a City of Toronto removal order. Putting on its legal cap, Torontoist reviewed the notice of application [PDF]—the first step in the court process—filed by Titan in the Ontario Superior Court. The notice alleges that the City lacks the authority to regulate the distinction between different types of signs, is acting......

In this occasional feature, two Torontoist staffers face off to debate an issue that is important to our city. We invite our readers to join in the debate in the comments section after the post. Signs, signs, everywhere signs. The beginning of the year marked the first anniversary of a controversial and radical ban of all nearly outdoor advertising in São Paulo, Brazil. While Toronto's advertising problems are certainly not as serious as São Paulo's,......

The Toronto Star. July 18, 2007. Joe Fiorito column: The other day I noticed a Red Rocket, defaced from stem to stern with a depiction of a bottle of vodka and the comely legs of a party girl whose dress was hiked up around her thighs. Let me count the ways this is wrong. But first, my bona fides. I grew up during the sexual revolution. I also learned a variety of useful lessons......