Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 ::: Law: Threats Against Us

“Abro questions the accuracy of some of the information presented on the Illegal Signs website, saying he has documentation that proves at least one allegation the site makes about an illegal Abcon sign is false.”

-Matt Semansky, Marketing Magazine, February 13, 2007

We previously reported that we were threatened with lawsuits by Clear Channel Outdoor, Titan Outdoor and Astral Media. We almost forgot about this threat from Abcon. Abcon is such a pipsqueak that we really didn’t pay much attention to it.

Here is Charlotte Janssen’s govern yourself accordingly e-mail:

Let’s pick this bullshit apart.

Without limitation, our client advises that when it made application for the sign at 125 George Street, Toronto, ON there was no third party sign 21 meters on the opposite side of the road, that in fact that sign followed rather than preceded the Abcon sign.

Lies!

Janssen is referring to this post we did about this illegal permit that Abcon Outdoor obtained at 125 George Street. We stated in the post that Abcon Outdoor lied to the Buildings Department, on page two of this document, where it attested that the sign on the easterly elevation of 125 George Street was not within 60M of any third party ground sign when it is in fact within about 21 metres of an Astral Media 12′ X 16′ ground sign across the street on the parking lot at 210 Richmond Street East.

Abcon is now claiming via Ms. Janssen that the Astral sign across the street was actually erected after Abcon’s sign at 125 George Street obtained the permit in March 2000.

The permit for the Astral ground sign accross the street, 91-3020570, was obtained by Ingird Brooks of OMNI - The National Poster Company on April 17, 1991. Buildings Department records indicate that the ground sign was erected by November 1991 when Inspector D. Port inspected and cleared the permit. In 1999, the assets of OMNI were acquired by Astral. Today, Astral is operating the ground sign at 210 Richmond Street East.

IllegalSigns.ca has examined the microfilmed diagrams and plans on file for this permit. We can report that Astral’s ground sign at 210 Richmond East as existing today, complies with the precise specifications of engineer Len Maile’s diagram #111187, which describes a 12′ by 16′ sign in structure, location, orientation and illumination that is exactly in accordance with the current sign. Astral has lots of illegal signs in this City, in fact Astral has a culture of non-compliance with the law, but 210 Richmond East is perfectly legal.

Buildings Department records also indicate that on May 22, 1996 William Shapiro of Urban Outdoor Trans Ad applied for but did not obtain a permit to replace the OMNI sign at 210 Richmond East with an Urban backlight sign. In connection with this permit application, the property owner wrote this letter to the Buildings Department, noting that the property contained an OMNI ground sign, “12′ by 16′ high:”

That Urban Outdoor permit was not issued for failing to comply with the amended by-law in these ways. The Building inspector, Norman Chin, noted on November 27, 1996 that the file was withdrawn. (Urban Outdoor had a nasty habit of usurping signs being operated by other advertising companies. Urban was taking away too many signs from the entrenched players who then lobbied the Former Toronto Land Use Committee to disallow the replacement of legal non-conforming signs, which it did. This is why replacing legal non-conforming signs is illegal in Toronto. Because CBS and OMNI were losing too many signs to Urban Outdoor and Pattison. Pattison would have hundreds more billboards in Toronto today at the expense of CBS and Astral if that by-law wasn’t passed.)

Abcon is claiming that there was no ground sign on March 22, 2000 when Abcon applied for the permit at 125 George Street. Abcon is therefore claiming that the ground sign at 210 Richmond East that was installed in 1991 and was present in 1996 when Urban Outdoor tried to steal the location, was removed by Astral or OMNI then re-installed in the exact same location, with the exact same specifications, nuts and bolts between March 2000 and October 2002 - so that on October 1, 2002 the sign was there when inspector Scott Sullivan responded to a complaint and issued this deviation order but it was not there in March 2000 when Mike McKague applied for and obtained the permit in March 2000. We think that’s a bit rich. Not to mention self-serving.

No other billboard permits have been issued to 210 Richmond East. We think the evidence that Abcon is guilty of billboard permit fraud at 125 George Street is overwhelming.

When the conflict arose and the City of Toronto wrote a letter, our client decided to remove the sign, and the permit was cancelled in October, 2002. Our client denies having ever applied for a variance to Council, let alone having one rejected.

Lies!

Check this out. The Planning Department issued this Staff Report, dated March 23, 2004, to Toronto East York Community Council. Now take a look at page 6 of that March 2004 Staff Report and you will find the following photograph entitled “Applicant’s Submitted Drawing”:

Well, well, well. What do we have at the bottom of the sign? An Abcon nameplate in the photograph attached to the March 2004 Staff Report. If Abcon “removed the sign” in or about October 2002 as Ms. Jensen suggests, how does Abcon explain its nameplate being right there in the “Applicant’s Submitted Drawing” for a March 2004 Staff Report below the Budweiser ad? We doubt that the photograph in the March 2004 Staff Report was taken sometime before October 2002 (some of the hundreds of advertising industry people who read this blog will know when the Bud campaign ran).

Of course it could be Abcon removed its sign without removing its nameplate, but we doubt that too. Or it could be that Abcon’s throwing bullshit via its solicitor. We call bullshit.

Furthermore, the City of Toronto Buildings Department records indicate that Abcon’s permit was not cancelled in October 2002. That was the date inspector Sullivan issued this Order to Comply. Buildings, sadly, never cancelled the permit and the permit was still valid when we looked into this file in the summer. (The permit was revoked recently after we filed a request for revocation.)

In addition, Abcon denies that the Harley Davidson sign at Front and Bathurst, more particularly at 27 Bathurst Street has any connection to Abcon.

In fact Abcon was operating an illegal sign at Front and Bathurst. We just got the municipal address wrong. It wasn’t 27 Bathurst, it was 500 Front Street a sign for which Abcon applied for and failed to obtain variances. Abcon wants an apology? How’s this for an apology: go fuck yourselves.

The Tea Makers has a take on the CBC’s first party sign variance application at Wellington and John. Of course, the CBC could just rent the billboard screen that Titan is renting to CTV across the street from the CBC’s offices.