Zanzibar fights city hall over bylaw prohibiting storefront video ad
The Yonge Street strip club will appeal to keep its 78-inch LED TV screen in its front window after receiving a notice of violation.

Thestar.com
By DAVID HAINS
March 15, 2017

Yonge Street 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 just 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 Street 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.

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“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 Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam argued that the rules should apply equally to all businesses.

“I think the sign committee should uphold the bylaw,” she said. Both Wong-Tam and Bader agree it’s not about the content of Zanzibar’s ad, which features scantily-clad women and Rolls-Royce hub caps, but the video format.

Cooper argued his business should be understood differently.

“A bank is not the same” as a strip club on Yonge Street, he said, arguing that businesses like his give Yonge some of its character. “I’m inclined to fight.”