By Rebecca Pace
Bar owners say they’re fed up with bylaw officers’ heavy-handed enforcement of the city’s poster bylaw.
Eugene Haslam, owner of local nightclub Zaphod Beeblebrox, says he and his staff were threatened by a bylaw officer after the city received a complaint about an illegal poster advertising his club.
“He came walking in [the club] like the Gestapo,” says Haslam. The officer then threatened to impose a fine, he says, and refused to explain what bylaw regulations Zaphod Beeblebrox’s broke.
According to the city bylaw, posters can be no larger than 28 x 43.5 cm and must be on poster collars – aluminum cylinders on lamp posts – or utility poles that are not within 200 m of a collar.
But Haslam says he and his staff know the rules. He says he never put up such a poster and wasn’t able to find the ad once notified by the bylaw official.
Although the nightclub never received a fine, Haslam says the threats are the reason he called a public meeting. “We are business owners and we should be treated with civility and respect,” he says.
While bylaw officials, city election candidates, and the mayor’s office were invited to the Nov. 9 meeting, it was mainly a public conversation between bar owners, musicians, and other representatives from the Ottawa arts community.
Adam Kronick, owner of Centretown’s Babylon nightclub, attended because he says it is unfair the bylaw’s “arbitrary fining system” is threatening and targeting bar owners.
He says he is also puzzled by the city’s lack of effort to explain or enforce the bylaw since its 2003 inception.
“If there’s going to be enforcement then it’s got to be across the board, not just on bands and bar owners,” says Kronick. “If someone can’t find their cat or dog and puts up an illegal poster, what’s the enforcement on them?”
Susan Jones, director of bylaw services for the City of Ottawa, says the increase in enforcement is merely a response to the increase in the number of complaints regarding posters promoting bars and bands. According to bylaw regulations, Jones says violators are to be fined $300 for every illegally-placed poster up to a maximum of $5,000.
“We always give the establishment an opportunity to comply,” she says. “It is only when they refuse that the establishment receives a fine.”
But Haslam says the bylaw is unfair because owners can be penalized for any illegally placed poster with their establishment’s name – whether they put it up or not.
“Any band or individual can put up a poster with my name on it illegally,” he says. “Why should I be blamed for something I did not do?”
Jones says the owners are liable because they receive benefit, such as venue fees and increased attendance, from publicity generated from an illegal poster.
Steve Monuk is a part-owner of York Entertainment, which owns 10 market-area establishments such as The New Capital Music Hall and Whiskey Bar. He says the problem can really be summed up as a lack of education.
“Look, we’re in business to make money and the city is in business to make money,” he says. “But if they’re going to send these bylaw officers into our clubs, they need to be educated and so do we.”
But David Blackman, a Centretown resident who has been filing poster complaints with the city since 1998, isn’t buying it. He says bar owners know the rules.
“They don’t give a damn,” he says. “I’ve sent information on the bylaw to the local bars and clubs and they never reply.”
Blackman says everyone has a right to poster, but with that right comes responsibility. He says more poster collars could improve the current situation.
And Haslam agrees. He says he will advocate for more collars but he says he will focus first on arranging a meeting between bar owners and bylaw officials to discuss the issue. Jones says Bylaw Services would have no hesitation in attending such a meeting.