Post Article Part Two

I came across the Toronto Public Space Committee, a bunch of good doers looking out for TO’s public spaces. While you sleep they are watching out for Monster Garbage Cans, Street Furniture, Bad Billboards and are the go-to-peeps when it comes to Toronto’s postering bylaws. Did you know that postering issues have been heard in front of the Supreme Court? Well they have. Allison Gorbould is a nice lady and an organizer with the Toronto Public Space Committee. She says there are new laws but so far no money to enforce them. Part of the by law states that "a poster may not cover or overlap another poster or community poster in whole or in part. Posters or community posters can be only one layer thick." Great, now we have to have a whole crew of Poster Inspectors scouring downtown with tape measures! The real objectionable posters are those commercial ones; they sometimes are just a strip of posters that haven’t even been cut. The other bad ones are posters on mailboxes, newspaper boxes, sides of buildings and people’s homes! It’s a classic case of commercial interest versus the community . The city’s solution seems to be something called “postering kiosks”. Trust the politicians to take something off a hydro pole and put it in a kiosk. So far there are no kiosks. The Public Space Committee is worried that the city will not allow community posters on poles. So next time you drive by a hydro pole with a notice for some cool band or a lost cat or a band named “Lost Cat” remember there’s more to it than just a bunch of paper on poles. A lot more.