Thursday, May 24th, 2007 ::: "Street Furniture"

It has come to our attention that Astral Media has claimed to City Staff and some City Councillors that it has removed billboards which have no permit. From today’s Globe:

Councillor Kyle Rae had urged city bureaucrats to get Astral to sign a declaration that all its existing billboards were legal before awarding them the contract. But in confidential legal advice provided to councillors, the city’s lawyers say this is not possible because it was not included as part of the criteria for the three firms that bid on the contract.

Mr. Rae said yesterday he has received assurances from Astral that it had taken down signs that did not have proper city permits, but that it intended to leave up its disputed “fascia” signs - vinyl tapestries hung on building walls but using permits for painted murals - pending a review of the rules. Mr. Rae said he did not know how many signs Astral had taken down.

It hasn’t taken down the signs. This should come as no surprise to IllegalSigns.ca readers, but some City Councillors are being fooled as are City Staffers eager to push forward the Street Furniture project. Astral is claiming that it is maintaining only those signs that have mural permits, but has removed those signs that have no permits. In fact we drove around downtown last night, basically Ward 20, and took photos of these illegal Astral signs, none of which have mural permits:

431 King Street West, Facing Spadina

276 King Street West

46 Spadina, South Elev.

1075 Yonge Street

260 Spadina Ave

IllegalSigns.ca has identified and filed complaints against a total of 41 illegal Astral Media billboards. About 5 signs have been removed and about 20-odd signs have been investigated so far.

Last month we distributed this flyer to the media and city councillors, wherein we fit as many illegal Astrals we could on one piece of paper. Our of all of these illegal Astrals, Astral is currently operating signage on every sign, except 5:

This doesn’t include any of the illegal roof signs Astral is operating in North York.

As for the motions that City Councillors at the Executive Committee passed against Astral’s illegal billboards, we were right, staff killed the motions after the Deputy Mayor had them referred to the City Manager. One thing we know for sure: Joe Pantalone does his job as Deputy Mayor very well. You don’t even want to read the Staff Report, but if you must, here it is. This motion and this motion to have Astral remove all their illegal signs were watered by the City Manager down to this:

Vigorously? Complaints received, meaning nothing proactive.