A letter from the city
Last week, OTL finally got a letter from the Ville Marie borough. If this is their idea of a Christmas present, it’s definitely one that we’d like to exchange. It’s in response to our question about the giant billboard from Time2Ad on The Main, asking just what the city was going to do about it.
They responded by saying that the billboard was perfectly legal, without addressing the issue we brought up that it was on a historic site where, according to Parks Canada: “intrusive elements must be minimal.”
They also pointed out that the billboard had been removed, which is something we had mentioned in our letter, without addressing the fact that absolutely no work had been done on the building that was underneath it, which was, according to the company that put it up, the main thing that was supposed to be paid by the billboard being there in the first place.
This response, while unfortunate, is not unexpected. In fact, it is similar to the dodging the subject and passing the buck that both the Ville Marie and Plateau borough engaged in when confronting another violation of our historic site, ad trucks.
A couple of years ago, Brandon You of PubPartout went to both borough’s meetings to give the respective mayors the Pub Partout Pub d’Or Award for allowing ad trucks to circulate unimpeded. This gem is our Christmas gift to everyone upset with the city’s inaction and pro-corporate agenda. Enjoy!
It’s also interesting to note that while they tried to take our footage, they voted to allow surveillance cameras on the Main later in the very same meeting.
Keep up the fight and Happy Holidays from OTL!