174 Spadina, North Elevation
In Astral Media: A Culture of Non-Compliance With the Law (Part One) we told you about Astral Media’s illegal billboard on the southerly elevation of 174 Spadina. Today, we take a look at the northerly elevation of 174 Spadina.
This is what it looks like:
This is a Strategic Media sign which is currently sub-leased to Astral Media. 174 Spadina is the former home of Strategic Media’s corporate offices.
On December 30, 2005 Municipal Standards Officer Anthony Bartolo took this photo of Strategic Media’s sign on the northerly elevation of 174 Spadina:
On February 20, 2006 the file was passed to officer Danny Baird who looked in the IBMS system and didn’t find a permit:
So Baird issued this Notice of Violation ordering the sign removed within 14 days:
On February 27, 2006, Danny Baird received a call from Strategic Media’s Daniel Pitoscia:
On March 6, 2006, Daniel Pitoscia applied for this permit to paint a 41 square metre third party mural at 174 Spadina:
A painted mural sign conforms to the by-law but a vinyl fascia sign that is attached to the wall does not. This is the diagram that Pitoscia attached to his permit application for a “mural” sign.
Take a close look at the diagram and you see the words “VINYL ATTACHED TO BRICK WALL WITH ADHESIVE” crossed out. In other words, Pitoscia applied for a vinyl fascia sign with a painted mural application. Those words were written by Pitoscia but then crossed out the zoning examiner after this trail of e-mails in which she asked if she could issue a permit for a vinyl sign on a mural permit:
Although the advice that the examiner received from Tim Crawford was correct, she managed to make a key mistake. She states: “it will cause a problem if it is considered a fascia sign as the sign will exceed the 25 square metres restriction for 3rd party signs not facing a street. It complies with everything else..” In fact the sign does not “comply with everything else.” A third party fascia sign cannot be within 60 Metres of another third party sign and this sign is within 60M of the Pattison roof sign above the Blockbuster next door. At no time did Pitoscia submit any documentation to the zoning examiner suggesting that the sign complied with 60 Metre separation requirements for vinyl fascia signs? Why did the examiner get the idea that the sign complied with separation requirements? Note that Pitoscia submitted this “Signs Data – Sheet” which attested that the sign complies with 60M separation requirements for non-illuminated mural signs.
So the examiner relied upon compliance with non-illuminated mural separation requirements to conclude in her e-mail that “it complied with everything else” and the only problem facing the permitability of a fascia sign was size. Perhaps this is an innocuous line in an e-mail. But it’s not. Because that was in March 2006. And then, two months later, in May 2006, at 544 King Street West, Daniel Pitoscia refined his scheme. In Permit Fraud: 544 King Street West we told you how Daniel Pitoscia obtained a permit for a vinyl fascia sign from the zoning examiner by first submitting an application for a mural sign then amending the application to be a vinyl fascia sign. A very keen reader of Permit Fraud: 544 King Street West will note that in the case of 544 King Street West the examiner relied upon a Signs – Data Sheet indicating compliance with non-illuminated mural separation requirements for the purpose of the fascia application; and that the only change that she required Pitoscia to make to he application was reducing the size of the sign from 142 square metres to 25 square metres. In other words, while Pitoscia didn’t obtain the permit he wanted for 174 Spadina, during the process he learned a few things about the examiner. “I look forward to speaking with you again,” he wrote in March 2006:
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As for Danny Baird, he received an e-mail from Pitsocia saying that the sign was removed.
The sign was re-erected shortly thereafter and then sub-leased to Astral. It is still there today.
