ENGINEERING SERVICES

April 7, 2000

MEMO TO: Mayor and Council

COPY TO: Judy Rogers, City Manager

Ulli Watkiss, City Clerk

FROM: Dave Rudberg, General Manager of Engineering Services

SUBJECT: SANDWICH BOARD SIGNS

At City Council's meeting of April 4, 2000, a concern was raised with respect to the degree of sandwich board encroachments onto the sidewalk which was creating a hazardous condition. The south side of Davie Street was referenced, although there was problems cited throughout the downtown area. The purpose of this report is to advise Council on the current by-law regulations, as well as our enforcement follow-up.

The Street and Traffic By-law clearly prohibits the placement of sandwich board signs on City sidewalks. Given limited resources, the City generally enforces this on a complaint basis and this has worked reasonably well in the past. Merchants are aware of the by-law and normally compliance is not a problem.

Periodically, the system seems to break down and a degree of anarchy rises as merchants compete for customers and advertising space. This appears to be the case now based on Council's feedback and our own observations.

As a result, we have reallocated some existing resources to undertake enforcement actions using the current by-law. We usually follow a two step procedure as follows:

Step 1: The merchants are notified, in writing, that they are in violation of the by-law and are asked to remove their sandwich board signs from the public sidewalk.

Step 2: Failure to comply with the warning, ie. repeat violation, the City will confiscate the sandwich board sign.

Step 3: These signs can be retrieved from the City with a $50.00 fee to cover ourcosts.

The standard practice is for merchants to remove the sandwich board sign entirely, or place it up next to the building which is generally on private property. While this is technically in violation of the Sign By-law, it does remove the obstruction from the walking portion of the sidewalk area.

Council may receive some complaints from the merchants due to our enforcement action. The action, however, is undertaken in response to concerns with pedestrian safety and the level of abuse of the sidewalk area.

We are documenting our enforcement efforts with before and after pictures and will be reporting to Council on the results of our enforcement activity. Should any member of Council have any concerns or need additional information, please get back to me at 873-7300.

ORIGINAL SIGNED BY:

D.H. Rudberg, P.Eng.
General Manager of Engineering Services

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