Zanzibar, city hall spar over signage
Strip club refuses to accept bylaw on storefront video ads
Yonge St. strip club Zanzibar is fighting city hall over its sign bylaw.
The club is one of hundreds of businesses that received a notice of violation over the past few months, but it isn’t accepting the rule.
It will appeal to the city’s sign variance committee next week for an exemption to advertise its services on a 78-inch LED television that faces Yonge St. at ground level. The appeal does not affect the large neon sign above.
“I’m quite worried,” said Zanzibar owner Allen Cooper, who compared his relationship to city hall to Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment.
“We need all the advertising we can get,” he said, adding that it has become increasingly difficult for the adult entertainment industry to advertise.
Cooper argues that Zanzibar has advertised in its front window in one way or another for about 60 years, and that the 2010 sign bylaw that prohibits storefront video advertising shouldn’t apply.
But other businesses have complied with the city’s sign bylaw without a hassle.
Robert Bader, a supervisor in the city’s sign bylaw unit, said hundreds of notices have been sent out to businesses, and “well over 80 per cent” responded by removing their electronic signs.
Bader expects further appeals as more businesses challenge enforcement of the bylaw. At the same sign variance meeting, Scotiabank will argue to keep five video screens that appear at Scotia Plaza in the financial district.
But Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam argued the rules should apply equally to all businesses.
“I think the sign committee should uphold the bylaw,” she said.
Cooper insists his business should be treated differently.
“A bank is not the same” as a strip club on Yonge St., he said, arguing that businesses like his give Yonge some of its character.
“I’m inclined to fight.”