Vancouver Olympic Sign Bylaw Understood
For the uninformed, a couple of years ago, the City of Vancouver asked the Province to modify its charter, so that it could amend the response time required to remove already illegal signage.
This was immediately decried by anti-Olympic activists and civil liberties organizations as an infringement on free speech. At the time I was suitably outraged. Here is an FAQ with the city defending its position.
If you are not in Vancouver, you may not know that the proposed changes to the bylaw have gone through a number of changes. Recently the B.C. Civil Liberties Association has been satisfied, but not pleased with the final law.
The odd part of this story is that throughout, we heard very little about enforcement. Also, VANOC and the IOC have taking a beating in major media; certainly they could take a little criticism in signage. Then about a month ago I was downtown, and noticed the murals painted over on Beatty Street. I thought, well that is not nice. Those murals were beautiful, cool, and really gave some character to that part of town. In the end, I chose the optimistic view, and figured that after the Olympics we would get some new murals.
Then last night the Boxing Kangaroo Flag Story broke. All became clear to me.
It is my opinion that the IOC, VANOC, and The City of Vancouver were acting at the bequest of their television media partners. The purpose of the sign bylaw is not to infringe on free speach, or to fight anti-Olympic messages. It is to control what signs can go where. The real reason is that the television media want to be able to get good stock footage of the city when they are here. The last thing that they want is a banner hanging from apartments that says anything, if it interferes with a stock shot of a Vancouver sunset.
Tags: bylaw, olympics, signage, signs