Friday, December 14th, 2007 ::: Billboard Permit Fraud

The Buildings Department has revoked the illegal billboard permit for 717 Church Street and the illegal sign has finally been removed. On June 19, 2002, Steve Wolowich, the Director of Real Estate for CBS Outdoor, obtained this illegal permit to erect a third party fascia sign on the westerly elevation of 717 Church. In order to obtain the permit, Wolowich lied and attested that the sign was not within 60M of a third party pedestal sign.

717 Church is owned by the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario, which is a body whose members are regulated by the Building Code Act. The Act prohibits the filing of false information to obtain a permit.

This is what the sign looked like in the summer of 2006:

Contrary to Wolowich’s false information, the sign is located within 45M of this Pattison third party pedestal sign at the car wash across the street:

Not only that, but the signs by-law prohibits such a sign from being located within 20M of a residential lot line. We got out our measuring wheel and measured the distance between the sign an the lot line of the apartment building at 66 Collier Street. 18 metres.

When Wolowich applied for his permit, he made this notation on the plans:

Wolowich lied about separation of signs, but he only attested that the sign was 15 metres away from a residential lot line when the by-law requires a 20M separation for this type of sign. The zoning examiner crossed out 15 and replaced it with 20 and wrote “Inspector to Verify.”

Well, that permit was issued in July 2002 and no building inspector verified that information until we complained about it in summer 2006. Buildings stopped inspecting billboards about 12 years ago. That’s why Wolowich knew he could get away with fraud. The sign was never inspected until we sent our volunteers out with our measuring wheel and passed that information along to the city. When the city inspected the sign pursuant to our complaint, the officers wrote this in their notes:

After proving the sign was located within 20M of 66 Collier, the City didn’t have to prove the sign is located within 60M of the Pattison sign to revoke the permit. The sign requires an additional variance: facing a street. No third party sign may face a street. The sign faces Church Street.

After Skye Media was acquired by Titan, Titan began operating the sign. Once the permit was revoked, Titan removed the vinyl from the structure and for the longest time the sign looked like this:

That photo was taken on February 20, 2007. On or around March 20, 2007, the copy was re-erected on the illegal sign for the last time:

The Monster.ca sign was up for a few weeks. (We wonder how many passers-by truly understood the Be Ubiquitous pun.) On March 12, 2007 we wrote this letter to Susan Wiggins, Executive Director of the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario.

The sign frame remained an eyesore for about three months afterwards. It was finally taken down this week. This is what the sign looked like yesterday:

Keen observers will ask if ARIDO’s illegal billboard, half of which was erected on the metal-clad third story, half on the brick-clad second story, contributed to the Thomas Gluck-designed building’s design language, or whatever the fuck you call it.

The Donut World sign is really cool. It is simultaneously in the shape of a donut and in the shape of the world. Now that’s good design, something the charlatans across the street, who were content to rape the design of their building for four years, wouldn’t understand.