Diane Crocker/The Western Star
Mayor Charles Pender is seen during Monday night’s council meeting. As part of the city’s 60th anniversary celebrations the public meeting was held at the Royal Canadian Legion.
Brake, owner of Digital Advertising Solutions, said the decision, made during a public council meeting held at the Royal Canadian Legion, was a step in the right direction. He’s been trying to set up outdoor digital advertising signs in the city for about two years, however, he says the lack of regulations on such signs, including the sale of third-party advertising, has been a stumbling block.
But even with the city at least temporarily out of the advertising business, Brake is still concerned the door is left open for selling third-party advertising down the road.
“I have to run my business to earn a profit,” he said after the meeting. (The city has) the tax base to fall back on if the market isn’t there and therefore they’re competing with private business.
“I’m all about competition, but I shouldn’t have to compete with the city.”
The motion to call for the city to stop selling third-party advertising on the civic centre sign was brought forward by Coun. Keith Cormier. Cormier felt the city was being “heavy handed” by not allowing someone else to do what it is doing and questioned how that could happen without proper regulations in place.
Discussion on the issue showed a consensus among councillors that the practice should stop until regulations are in place.
Since the current sign, a replacement of one installed in 2002, was put in place last year about $1,000 in advertising has been sold. The advertising revenue is meant to supplement the subsidy the city pays for the operation of the centre and Mayor Charles Pender said the city is well within its authority to sell advertising on the sign.
However, he agreed it is a confusing issue, and that is why council felt it was best to stop the practice in the interim.
Pender is not convinced the issue will be resolved any time soon.
“I really don’t feel that the business community is really well informed,” he said.
He said there are many issues that need to be covered by the regulations, including if digital signs are allowed in the downtown then does that mean all businesses can convert to digital signs? And will offsite advertising by businesses from outside the city be allowed.
“I don’t think as a city we’ve done a good enough job of putting those issues out there and making sure that businesses understand what those issues could potentially be so they can have a fair input into the whole process.”
Before any regulations are approved he’ll be asking that letters be sent to every business registered with the city outlining the possibilities and asking for their thoughts on them.
“My fear is that we’re going to go ahead and do something and then when it’s up and done, and we have digital signs or we do offsite advertising, then all of a sudden businesses are going to start coming out and say ‘I can’t afford that or why is that on my doorstep, or who allowed that in the downtown.’”
