Results tagged “ramitabello”

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 by a network of organizations known collectively as the Beautiful City Alliance. The coalition is working to convince city council to direct revenue from the billboard tax it plans to introduce this summer towards art in the public sphere and is stepping up its campaign efforts as the vote on that tax approaches. The town hall, attended by some two or three hundred artists and activists, as well as several city councillors, was part informational meeting and part pep rally, with a bit of spontaneous art production thrown in for good measure.

In what IllegalSigns.ca's Rami Tabello is calling a "complete victory for Toronto," the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has ruled that outdoor ad company Strategic Media, among other offenses, "over the last year or so...began erecting signs without obtaining permits." Not that great of a strategy, really! In spite of Strategic's not-yet-resolved constitutional challenge to the City's sign by-law (which we explored the legality of in May), the court ruled that the City can begin removing Strategic's many illegal billboards across Toronto. Councillor Howard Moscoe, who we like more and more every day, told the Post that "we will go out and take them down and charge them on the tax bill if they don’t take them down themselves."

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 other individual. He claims, under oath, to have lost $1 million due to sign bylaw enforcement. He threatened to sue Rami and is currently suing the City. And last night I learned that he is also an amateur paparazzo.

And Torontoist was there to make a video of it.

Rami Tabello of IllegalSigns.ca has teamed up with the New York–based Anti-Advertising Agency to create IllegalBillboards.org. According to Tabello's announcement, "the idea is to set up a blank web site, which can now be used by New York-based activists to keep track of research into illegal billboards and scrutiny of Department of Buildings enforcement." Tabello has already started taking a look at illegal ads in New York City over the past few weeks.

Photo of a Koodo mobile ad by Marc Lostracco.

The province has ordered the City of Toronto to stop stonewalling in the face of freedom of information requests about allegedly illegal billboards.

With Rogers' plan to move Citytv, OMNI Television, and the Fan 590 to the southeast corner of Dundas Square, those familiar with the current streetfront studios on Queen Street have wondered if the former Olympic Spirit building will be opened up in a similar way.

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.

From mid-September through year-end, all City Community Centres will be closed on Mondays. Skating rinks won't open until January. Fewer potholes will be repaired. Snow won't be cleared unless there is at least 15 cm of it (the current minimum is 8 cm). New materials from Public Health will only be available in English.

Last summer, Clear Channel Outdoor threatened to sue the Toronto Public Space Committee; last week Astral Media Outdoor threatened to sue Rami Tabello and his IllegalSigns.ca. That left one bidder for the "street furniture" contract with a relatively fuck-up-free slate.

Howard Moscoe proposes a licensing fee or tax on temporary downtown parking lots with the revenue directed towards building more commuter parking lots at public transit hubs. Moscoe argues that this would induce more people to take transit and encourage temporary lots to be redeveloped more quickly.

Somewhere, Dave Meslin is weeping with joy. Today marks the launch of Rami Tabello's IllegalSigns.ca: an incredibly ambitious project that, through its comprehensive analysis of billboard advertising in Toronto, ties together a number of the loose ends of the broader public space movement. What Tabello has found – and has the hard evidence to back up – is that "half the billboards in Toronto are illegal." They have "thus far identified 350 illegal billboards," and estimate that "there are an additional 1500 illegal billboards in this town that we have not yet discovered."