Only a few days prior to Centre Wellington Township passing its sign bylaw, the roads department swooped down on over 400 illegal signs and hauled them away.
That was one of the concerns of the township Chamber of Commerce when president Michael Weinstein attended the council meeting the night the bylaw was debated on July 12.
Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj said in an interview on July 24 there was a good reason the township acted to remove the signs.
She said there was “a plethora of signs that sprung up” seemingly overnight and the township received complaints about them.
Public Works Director Ken Elder said the road crews seized about 400 signs, with nearly half of them touting an event at the Elora Centre for the Arts.
Ross-Zuj said signs were planted in the roundabout at the south end of Metcalfe Street in Elora, and she heard complaints that someone had even placed signs at the Elora cenotaph.
“It caught the attention of the residents when the whole downtown was flooded,” Ross-Zuj said.
She added that many visitors to Elora love to take pictures of the village, and the sign bylaw enables them to do that without signs cluttering the views.
Economic development officer Dave Rushton said that with the new bylaw in place, people holding events will be allowed no more than a dozen directional signs and those can be put in place only three days prior to the event.
Ross-Zuj reiterated council’s promise that it will ease into the bylaw with its enforcement, and give warnings rather than lay charges.
However, with the complaints, she said the township had to act and remove many illegal signs.
