{"id":4028,"date":"2009-02-13T14:03:47","date_gmt":"2009-02-13T19:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2009\/02\/13\/illegal-billboards-and-the-supreme-court-of-ontario\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T12:54:47","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T17:54:47","slug":"illegal-billboards-and-the-supreme-court-of-ontario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/02\/13\/illegal-billboards-and-the-supreme-court-of-ontario\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal billboards and the Ontario Superior Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/213\/509294281_7382360937.jpg\" height=\"333\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>One of the galvanizing issues that helped start <em>Spacing<\/em> was the incremental intrusion of billboards and advertising into the public realm (what we call &#8220;ad creep&#8221;) without an ounce of public consultation. When Dave Meslin passed the torch on at the <a href=\"http:\/\/publicspace.ca\">Toronto Public Space Committee<\/a> people like Jonathan Goldsbie, Allison Gorbould, and Rami Tabello ran with the campaigns to try and keep the ad industry honest.<\/p>\n<p>Tabello really took hold of the issue by starting <a href=\"http:\/\/illegalsigns.ca\/\">IllegalSigns.ca<\/a> and is widely known in the ad industry; representatives often send him tips about the illegality of signs erected by competing ads companies. He&#8217;s also received a handful of legal threats and his actions led Strategic Media to take the City of Toronto to court when the City tried to take down their illegally installed signs.<\/p>\n<p>Tabello and the City have good reason to celebrate today as the Ontario Superior Court ruled in their favour. From Tabello&#8217;s press release:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The City of Toronto has won a major victory in the Ontario Superior Court against billboard company Strategic Media.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The Court ruled that the City may proceed with removing Strategic Media&#8217;s illegal billboards while Strategic Media continues with its constitutional challenge against the City&#8217;s signs by-laws.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;This is a huge victory for the City of Toronto,&#8221; says Rami Tabello, coordinator of <a href=\"http:\/\/illegalsigns.ca\/\">IllegalSigns.ca<\/a>. &#8220;Because Strategic Media&#8217;s suit was brought for the purpose of delay &#8212; so they can earn revenue on their illegal signs while the case drags through the courts &#8212; this decision represents a complete victory for the City.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.canlii.org\/en\/on\/onsc\/doc\/2009\/2009canlii3789\/2009canlii3789.html\">paragraphs 33 and 40 of the decision<\/a>, the Court found that there is &#8220;specific public interest in this case in the form of the complaints by a public interest group&#8221; which &#8220;inundated&#8221; the City with sign complaints. &#8220;The Ontario Superior Court explicitly ruled that our complaints against illegal billboards are in the public interest, and this has helped the City&#8217;s legal case immensely. Apparently, it pays to be a pest.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/illegalsigns.ca\/\">IllegalSigns.ca<\/a><\/em><em> has filed complaints against about 650 illegal billboards in the City of Toronto; about 35 of those signs belong to Strategic Media. In addition, IllegalSigns.ca has determined that all of the signs depicted on <a href=\"http:\/\/strategicmedia.ca\/\">StrategicMedia.ca <\/a>are illegal.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the galvanizing issues that helped start Spacing was the incremental intrusion of billboards and advertising into the public realm (what we call &#8220;ad creep&#8221;) without an ounce of public consultation. When Dave Meslin passed the torch on at the Toronto Public Space Committee people like Jonathan Goldsbie, Allison Gorbould, and Rami Tabello ran<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/02\/13\/illegal-billboards-and-the-supreme-court-of-ontario\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Illegal billboards and the Ontario Superior Court&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21759,2],"tags":[11,11475,4606,688,5216,11476,2951,11477,19,435],"class_list":["post-4028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-politics","tag-ad-creep","tag-allison-gorbould","tag-coordinator","tag-dave-meslin","tag-jonathan-goldsbie","tag-ontario-superior-court","tag-rami-tabello","tag-strategic-media","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-public-space-committee"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Illegal billboards and the Ontario Superior Court  - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/02\/13\/illegal-billboards-and-the-supreme-court-of-ontario\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Illegal billboards and the Ontario Superior Court  - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the galvanizing issues that helped start Spacing was the incremental intrusion of billboards and advertising into the public realm (what we call &#8220;ad creep&#8221;) without an ounce of public consultation. 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