[B]ad Trucks - Are They Illegal?

Are advertising trucks illegal?

Advertising trucks are technically illegal in Montreal. The reason why the word technically was used is because of the controversy and ambiguity surrounding the by-laws in question. On May 16, 1994 the city of Montreal adopted Article 8.1 of By-law R.R.V.M. c.P-1, which stated “no person may place a vehicle on public property to offer it for sale or rental or draw attention to an advertisement (italics added)”. This by-law is quite ambiguous but does make it illegal to place a vehicle on public property (the street) to draw attention to an advertisement (the purpose of a diving billboard). This regulation was implemented before advertising companies were present in Montreal. After the merger of Montreal into one city, each borough constructed separate by-laws which are known as the urban planning by law. By-law 531 for the Ville Marie and by-law 498 for the Plateau area was adopted and directly specifies that ad trucks are illegal. This by-law reads, “No advertisement may be placed on a vehicle unless it is on a bus”. In this by-law, the ambiguity is cleared up, however controversy still remains.

On 29th September, 2004, Media Rolling Inc was fined under the urban planning by-law 531. During the period of 2004 to 2006, the police and city inspectors did not fine any other ad trucks. Their justification was that they could not ticket ad truck companies until the court case passed because it may be a waste of time.

In September 2006, the court case was finally heard. Media Rolling Inc won their case against the city of Montreal because the city retracted their suit. Charges were dropped because according to city lawyer Gaétane Martel, the by-law is unconstitutional. On September 13th 2006, La Presse quoted her saying, “Il est vrai qu'a partir du moment ou nous permettons aux autobus d'afficher de la publicité, ça devient plus difficile de dire que seuls les camions publicitaires n'ont pas le droit de le faire”. This translates to ”It is true that we permit buses to display advertising it would be hard to say that only ad trucks couldn’t do it”.

Since this decision, the police and city inspectors will no longer ticket ad trucks under the urban planning by-laws. However, both by-laws still exist. In fact, the Plateau by-law 498 was never in question during the course of this court case.