OK, Here's the scoop on Postering in St.John's and some info on how it is similar to Halifax. The city of St.John's attempted to outlaw postering on Telephone poles in the downtown area about 3 years ago. They put up about 10 event boards for public postering around downtown. These boards are too small to hold all the posters for one weeks worth of events, let alone be large enough to let people do any real advance postering. The bords are about 24"x40".
Obviously, some of us don't htink the boards are any good any continue to poster on Telphone poles around the downtown area. The city doesn't bother us about it anymore. They used to send nasty letters to the venues where the shows were being held but we tended to ignore them and they have never followed through on their threats to knowledge. Now here is the reason why they are pretty much powerless, and this affects every single person in this country (incl. PQ). About 3 years ago a band in LONDON ONT. called Reverend (? can't remember his name....duh) and the LOST FOLLOWERS were fined for postering on public telephone poles. They challenged the fine in court and went all the way to the Supreme Court claiming an infringement of their freedom of speech. They won! The court found that a Municipal Government cannot put an outright ban on postering on public property, they can however put controlling by-laws into place. They can limit how long posters are allowed to be affixed to poles, enforce the removal of posters after set periods of time etc. etc. This is a basic run through of what has gone down. The freedom of speech arguement is mostly based on the idea that if you can't afford advertising in periodicals, billboards etc. then you cannot advertise your product/event or voice yor opinions/ideas/art. This creates (yet another) boundary between economic classes. If you are poor, the cheapest way to get your word out is to do some hand writtenposters or photocopies and put them up for all to see. By banning postering, a gigantic segment of the population is denied acces to an open forum. So those of you in Halifax, perhaps you should be petitioning yor municipal government for a time limit on how long posters may be up for. Suggeest that they remove posters from public property only on Sunday nights, that way you could advertise all week inadvance toa a weekend gig (I assume that most events happen on the weekend, if I'm incorrect then adjust the day). If this doesn't work, well then goddamnit, it's time for ART in the name of social and political change. Make posters that are not for an event but are political statements and plaster them with wallpaper patse over every fucking object in town and let the population know that your government blows fucking big chunks of crap over the little guy while sucking up to every middle aged, power hungry, control freak deviant who claims to be an international political leader (Gfucking7) but are really part of the reason why the world is completely fucked up for every Tom Dick Harry Jane Suzy and Jennifer who don't make 6 digit salries and have government pension plans that pay them more in one year than Ihave made this decade. Go to it folks. The time for Action is Now. You have no-one to blame but yourselves if nothing happens. The government is a pawn. A BIG BIG pawn that is hard to move that one space forward but just like everyone else the government is annoyed by pesky consitently annoying buzzes and eventually would rather fix the problem than live with the annoyance. Whoah, long post, and I didn't even get to the recycling monologue. HUB
