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Town cracking down on signage

The Town of Banff will crack down on businesses using illegal signs to promote their stores, hotels and restaurants.

The Town of Banff will crack down on businesses using illegal signs to promote their stores, hotels and restaurants.

Council has agreed to begin an education campaign, but has directed administration to begin enforcing existing signage regulations if people continue to ignore them.

“We have fairly robust signage regulations, but during Banff Refreshing a lot of flexibility was given to businesses and I think we’re seeing a bit of hangover from that,” said senior planner Darren Enns.

“We’re giving the community a bit of a heads-up we will be starting to enforce it, but first we want to give people an opportunity to come into compliance by themselves.”

The crackdown will also apply to the use of outside speakers.

Councillor Stavros Karlos pointed to the existing 2007 Community Standards Bylaw that prohibits external speakers, and said existing bylaws must be enforced.

“They are now creeping in and it’s kind of okay if one person does it, but as soon as everybody else does it, it becomes a problem,” he said.

“If every single restaurant has a speaker outside, what sort of experience does this have for visitors walking down Banff Avenue?”

Surveys suggest international visitors are not as appreciative of Banff’s aesthetics as Canadians, and are less likely to have the impression of being in an authentic mountain community.

Officials say one of the reasons for this could be because of low-quality, unauthorized signs, which are usually hastily made, highly visible, and rarely meet the requirements of the Land Use Bylaw.

Mayor Karen Sorensen backs the education and enforcement campaign.

“As much as I struggle around the fast-food and gift shop discussion, I firmly believe part of the perceptions people have are to do with signage enforcement and external retailing,” she said.

Meanwhile, town planners will also draft proposed regulatory language for council’s future consideration to avoid a proliferation of freestanding signs along the 400 and 500 blocks of Banff Avenue.

Hoteliers are seeking out accessory uses within their properties, such as restaurants, personal service businesses, and retail outlets, and this drives demand for additional advertising signs.

The Land Use Bylaw permits a limited amount of freestanding signage for these businesses, however, the regulations are not clear and have led to inconsistency over time.

The review team recommends limiting the number of freestanding sign structures to one per frontage.

“We don’t want visitors to be overburdened with visual signage,” said Enns.

“One of the challenges is the changing size of properties. Some are 40-feet wide and others are 300-feet wide.”


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