Thinking outside the superbox

The city's attempt to clean up newspaper boxes is raising free speech issues and creating strange bedfellows

BY DALE DUNCAN

Fifteen boxes, each a different colour, stand in a line a few metres long at the corner of Dufferin and Bloor. Some have "lies" scrawled across their front windows in black ink; others show the remnants of posters that have been torn from their sides. Garbage has been stuffed between them, and the metal bar they're attached to has been bent out of shape.

The scene outside Dufferin subway station is a common sight at major intersections across Toronto, one of the most competitive newspaper markets in North America. There are 28 different publications on the street and some people think they have become a blight.

"It's unattractive. It gets in the way," Mayor David Miller told the Toronto Star about newspaper boxes in Janaury. "I mean, this is public space, right? And what we're essentially doing is privatizing the public space." The mayor is spearheading a campaign to clean up the boxes, and it's making the multimillion dollar publishing industry nervous. Until now, they've enjoyed lax laws the city finds difficult to enforce, but a proposed bylaw made available this week that will go before a city committee next month could change all that.

Newspaper distribution is a cutthroat business; the offices of publications across T.O. are fraught with rumours of competitors moving or beating up their opponents' boxes in the battle for street supremacy. Yet the mayor's campaign has inspired unlikely partners, such as eye Weekly and NOW, as well as each of the six dailies, to sit down together and make common cause.

Their proposal, which has received support in principle from the city and Business Improvement Associations (BIAs), is a 2.4-metre long "superbox" containing multiple publications.

The drive to clean up Toronto's sidewalks may seem innocuous, but in addition to making long-time business rivals break bread together, it has opened a Pandora's box of issues. As it stands now, the city doesn't even know for sure how many boxes are out there and which ones are illegal. One wonders how a stricter bylaw will be enforced. And the city must face the challenge of how to clean up our streets without hindering freedom of press or public access to information and without crushing our flourishing publication market.

In 2004, the city placed a two-year moratorium on new permits, meaning no opportunities exist for new publications to be distributed on city sidewalks. (Dose, which launched in April, found a loophole by agreeing to replace existing National Post boxes; the two papers share the same publisher.)

Publications are already protesting council's decision in October 2004 to increase annual fees by as much as nearly five times (from between $22 and $45 depending on location to $100 per box). The smaller papers, which don't have as much cash, have the most to lose. Their exclusion could mean a decline in the number of papers available offering alternative points of view.

The number of boxes has increased dramatically over the past five years. So have the complaints. "There has got to be more thought given to where they're placed," says Daina Leja, chair of the Pedestrian Committee's Urban Design Working Group. She's seen boxes placed across from outdoor patios, narrowing sidewalk space for pedestrians.

"We've had difficulties with some publications not picking up their extra copies and with people dumping garbage inside the boxes," says Councillor Sandra Bussin, chair of the City Beautiful Roundtable. James Robinson, executive director of the Downtown Yonge BIA, points to the graffiti the boxes often attract. "Some are better taken care of than others," he admits.

Some blame the city for letting things get out of hand. "The shit really hit the fan in October of 2003 when 24 Hours pooped out on the scene," says Mark Ratcliffe, circulation manager of Torstar Direct Services (TDS), which is in charge of distribution for eye, Vacancy, Real Estate News, Xtra and Metro (a direct competitor of 24 Hours).

The glossy, gossip-heavy daily dropped 2,500 boxes onto the street without permits when it first launched. It was a brilliant plan -- the boxes gave the paper the exposure it needed to get noticed. The city was slow to respond.

When 24 Hours did the same thing in Vancouver, the west coast city simply confiscated all the illegal boxes and sent the publication the bill. Toronto eventually took a more complicated route, suing the paper and eventually settling out of court (the terms of the settlement are undisclosed). The city is still struggling to get boxes without permits off the street.

"We do not publicly comment on issues of this nature," says Steve Angelevski, publisher of 24 Hours.

"The city hasn't been able to crack down on businesses breaking the law. It's not fair for those who play by the rules," says Maxine Lewis of TDS.

It seems there's little incentive to adhere to the law, especially when breaking the rules makes such good business sense. Street boxes, covered with a paper's name, logo and corporate colour, supply advertising in the busiest areas of the city.

"The number of papers we sell from our boxes is minimal," says Dino Capozzi, single copy supervisor for The Globe and Mail. He says advertising is the main reason they put boxes on the street. Even including the price of the box and the increase in annual fees to $100, the advertising space is a steal. The cost of a 30-by-60-inch ad in one of the city's Eucan garbage bins for a year is just short of $3,700.

"From a business and environmental perspective, there are too many boxes and it's causing visual pollution," says Terry Willows, vice-president of reader sales and services for the National Post. "The publishers have to stand back and ask: are the boxes really doing what they're meant to do?"

The new proposed bylaw may be voted on at the city's Works Committee meeting Sept. 14. Under the new rules, publishers would have to clearly post the contact information of the person in control of each structure. Publishers would be required to properly maintain boxes, and multiple boxes at one location would have to be arranged in a single line attached to a bar installed at the publication's cost.

While the city was busy drafting these new rules, a number of publications were struggling to expand under the moratorium. The Epoch Times was getting ready to launch an English edition when the moratorium came into effect. "It's been a huge impediment to our growth," says the president of The Epoch Times, Cindy Gu. The moratorium also limited expansion plans for Xtra, a non-profit paper for the gay and lesbian community.

The superbox committee -- representatives from the Toronto Star, Trader Media Corporation, The Toronto Sun, the National Post, NOW magazine, Torstar Distribution Services and The Globe and Mail -- has developed two superbox designs to present to the city, one for paid publications and one for the freebies. Each is 1.4 metres high and 2.4 metres wide. They come complete with corporate branding and colours for each section of the box. The superboxes will be tested during a pilot project in co-operation with local BIAs, though an exact date has yet to be set. Tentative sites for the new boxes include Yonge and Dundas, Bay and Bloor and Yonge and Bloor.

Councillor Bussin says the superboxes would work best in areas where there are already multiple boxes, and warns that freedom of speech is an important issue. "There needs to be a level of inclusion of all publications," she says. A limited number of spaces could mean some papers get left out. Those starting from scratch may never be able to find a spot in a box designed for the existing market.

The smaller publications may be the hardest hit. "Licensing fees are going up significantly, and right now it's uncertain how much publications would have to pay for the superboxes," says Xtra's circulation manager, Adrienne De Francesco. "Our main concern is the limitations on our public to access the information they need."